Renting the Beach Breathing Easier

Brittany Blackman’s vacation rental business is thriving after beating pandemic-sized odds

BY NICK COREY

IN 2020, BRITTANY BLACKMAN LAUNCHED HER Miramar Beach company, Breathe Easy Rentals, in the wake of pandemic-induced turmoil in the industry.

She had been working as the operations manager for another rental company. But the pandemic spurred an inflection point for her, inspiring the start of her fledgling business. She was now navigating entrepreneurship while juggling health restrictions amid an era of the “new normal.”

Blackman grew up in small-town Chatsworth, Georgia, the sister-city of Dalton, Georgia — known primarily as the carpet mill capital of the world. But, Blackman felt pulled to something beyond the carpet industry, even if not initially knowing what that might be.

“My family, my support system, they were great,” Blackman said. “I just knew that career-wise, I wanted something beyond what Chatsworth offered.”

She attended Reinhardt College in Waleska, Georgia, hoping to find a path that might interest her.

“I didn’t love it,” she said. “I left after a semester.”

Remembering the surrounding, natural beauty she experienced after visiting Destin during her senior year in high school, Blackman decided to make the beach her home. She found whatever work she could to support herself.

“I was a photo girl for fishing excursions,” she chuckled. “I did door to door sales; whatever I had to do, I’d do it.”

Until she found employment that seemed to fit her organized temperament and outgoing personality.

“I started working as a reservationist for short-term rental properties.”

Unbeknownst to Blackman, that job, however short lived, would be the seed that sowed her career.

“Starting out, it was great,” Blackman said. “Then out of the blue, within my first few weeks, the operations manager abruptly left. We were a pretty small team, and he left with everything. We were scrambling.”

The owners had moved to Alabama and asked Blackman to take over as operations manager. She worked, learned and began developing her own personal business chops.

Then COVID-19 hit.

“We had to let go of everyone,” she said. “It was awful — so sad and stressful.

Blackman was left short staffed, adding nearly 700 cancellations to her list of duties.

“I had to tell people who’d been stuck indoors forever that their vacations were now canceled,” she recalled.

Blackman made YouTube videos that garnered attention — raw, unscripted, emotional pleas for Florida’s governor to end the restrictions that had been placed on vacation rental companies.

“It was emotional,” she said. “It all ended up being a shake-up moment of life for me.”

But Blackman had an idea. She’d garnered connections in the industry. And she trusted her work ethic. She proposed buying the business from the current owners.

They refused her offer.

“I ended up putting in my notice to hopefully convince them,” Blackman said.

Her plan backfired. Her bosses accepted the resignation.

“I reached the point … I just decided it was time,” she said.

Blackman ventured out on her own, starting Breathe Easy Vacation Rentals from ground zero. She found obstacles of miles of red-tape restrictions that short-term rental owners and property managers dealt with daily. So she became a leading voice for others in the industry. She emailed, called and attended meetings with government representatives, seeking ways in which time-consuming obstacles could be reexamined.

“I kind of unknowingly became the circus leader, trying to keep up with county regulations and relaying all that information back to property managers,” she said.

In a landmark victory, Blackman achieved the permission of affidavits to serve as sufficient for those seeking rental-property certificates versus the previous need for inspections by county representatives.

“It was impossible for the inspectors to do all the inspections in a fair, timely fashion. So getting the affidavits approved was a big win for us.”

Blackman continues to stay in contact with other property management companies, providing updates on the latest ordinances that might affect them. She’s been asked to be on a task force with the Walton County government. She looks for ways to decrease mandated red tape on anything affecting not only her own business, but the businesses of others in the short-term rental industry of Northwest Florida.

One is struck with how genuinely and affably Blackman communicates herself, even when discussing unsteady, difficult times.

One also senses that Blackman is busy — a portrait of perpetual, kinetic, get-it-done energy.

She wouldn’t trade any of it.

“I’d do it all over again,” she said. “I really would. Change is so hard, walking away from security is so hard. But it’s so worth it.”

For more information or to view rental listings in the Destin area, visit BreathEeasyRentals.com.