W E A LT H A S A VAC AT ION
9.4 The Next Evolution of VRP Management by LRR President Nick Falcone To learn about the growing short-term vacation property industry in Orlando, Florida, I visited my first vacation rental several years ago. I booked it online and didn’t really know what to expect. I went to the address listed on the confirmation email from the rental management company, which brought me directly to the home itself. When I got there, there were a lot of strange things about the whole thing. For example, there was no check-in experience, and there were no instructions whatsoever on how to get to the actual home. I didn’t know what to do, so I called the number on the confirmation. A gentleman answered the phone and said, “Hey, Nick. We’ve been awaiting your arrival. I just went out to lunch at McDonald’s. I’ll be back in 15 minutes with your key.” I thought, that’s kind of odd. There was nowhere to check in, and I was just supposed to wait for the guy for my key to get into the unit. He eventually arrived. I walked up to the unit to go inside, and there were three garbage bags outside the entryway, most likely from the previous stay. This was, of course, another weird moment. Usually, when you go to a hotel, they’re going to clear out all the garbage and make the room nice and clean ahead of your arrival. I was learning pretty quickly that the standards of vacation home rentals were a lot different than the standards of a hotel. Next, I got into the unit and went to the bathroom. I walked in and the tub in the bathroom was covered in blood. It looked like an animal was massacred or something; I don’t even want to know what had happened in there. You can imagine how I felt in that moment. It was shocking. If the first two things weren’t enough, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Luckily, my wife wasn’t there at the time, she was driving up in a separate car. I called her and said, “Honey, I know we were going to experience this vacation rental thing this weekend,
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