CHAPTER 1
Defining Vacation Rental Property
THE SHORT-TERM, hotel-like booking locations known as vacation
rental property are not just for vacation anymore. Now, business locations have begun offering VRP as an alternative to business hotels. This increases the likelihood that family will travel with the business traveler. From an exotic place like Costa Rica on the peninsula of Papagayo, where you’ll find the exquisite Four Seasons Resort, to beautiful Okoboji, Iowa in the American Midwest, to downtown New York City, to London, to Dubai anywhere . . . anywhere there is a need for travelers to stay for four days to one month, you will find this product. VRP owners are changing their lives for the better. In this book, you’ll learn about investors who pay $25,00 per square foot for stunning homes, but I also want you to meet modest investors who started small—sometimes very small, as in ice-fishing-shack small—and built from there. From vacation homes to condos in Las Vegas, Paris, Rio, Nassau, this short-term rental industry has gone viral. The VRP market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 3.62%; by 2026, nearly one in individuals will have stayed in an VRP.1 Let’s look at Okoboji, a city in Dickinson County, Iowa, along the eastern shore of West Okoboji Lake in the Iowa Great Lakes region. Only 800 permanent residents call it home year-round. I got 1. https://www.statista.com/outlook/mmo/travel-tourism/vacation-rentals/united-states 5
