W E A LT H A S A VAC AT ION
A Better Way to Operate
Richard had just left the whole thing alone. He left his VRP to other people who, in the end, were not professional managers. The twist here is it is actually okay to leave your VRP alone if you make good decisions in the beginning. This means doing your due diligence on the management company you choose to work with, for example, and being willing to pay them 30% of your rental income to ensure they take care of business. I ultimately took Richard over to a paradigm-shifting VRP management company you’ll learn more about in Chapter 9, and introduced him to the owner. You could see the light bulbs going off in his mind. He said, “Oh wow. So, there is a lot of work to this.” He learned how a professional third-party VRP management company makes your residence yours each and every time you return to it. In other words, when you go to that home, your pictures are up. Your bed sheets are on. Your silverware is there. Everything that makes it personal is put in place before you arrive. When you leave, all of that personal stuff is collected, put in the owners’ closet, and the hospitality items comes out. The bed sheets with the same thread count in every home in the development or resort. The standard towels, the dishes. A skilled third-party management company transforms from your home into a hotel suite for guests. It provides a high level of service. Ten years after his failed experiment on that lake in Canada, Richard is going to invest in VRP again. But this time, he’ll do it right. He’ll manage the manager, and he will learn his business. Then he’ll go fishing.
2.2 Your VRP Business Plan One of the most important things you will do before purchasing a VRP is create a strategic vacation rental business and management plan. This should be a disciplined and thoughtful process, and again, it should occur long before you consider making that first purchase offer. Creating a strict business plan will help you examine the risks 34
