So, you just purchased your dream vacation home in your favorite escape-to city and you want to open your home up for vacation renters when you’re not using it. Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Fort Morgan are great places to vacation! We applaud your choice! But do you manage your rental by yourself and use a national website that folds your property into tons of other similar homes for rent or do you hire a local professional rental management company to help you market your investment? At Sunset Properties, we believe knowing the pros and cons of this big decision are a must for any new or experienced vacation home owner. We also know we can help you manage your investment to its fullest potential while keeping your personal goals for your property in mind. We are going to list the “pros” for using us, Local Pros in vacation rental management, and let you determine the “cons” for yourself.
Here are five reasons you should choose Sunset Properties to manage your vacation investment in Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Fort Morgan:
1 We are local and we are family
Our team at Sunset Properties lives, works and attends school in Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Fort Morgan. We have roots here. We are local and we love our area. It’s our home and, as a vacation homeowner, it’s your home, too. We are a family company with family values and we welcome the opportunity to have you join us. We know buying a vacation rental home is a huge investment and we understand the need for owners to profit from it. We also know owners want to be able to enjoy their purchases. Because we live here, we are able to make recommendations to owners about dates and times to visit the Alabama Gulf Coast and still make their specific desired income from their rental home. We can also make suggestions on changes or upgrades to properties based on the requests of renters. We can even arrange those changes or upgrades with the owner’s permission. As for our guests, we listen to their wants and needs for their vacation experience and we match them with the home based on their specific vacation goals. It is our intent at Sunset Properties to meet the needs, not only of our owner families, but of our guest families, too. When we say, “we are local and we are family”, we are including you, as well!
2 We are available
We are always available. We are available to assist our owners and guests 24/7 and then some (remember, we are on Island Time!). While we have primary point people to serve our Sunset Properties families, our team is cross-trained, benefitting both our owners and guests. We may not have the answer you need at the time you ask it, but we will find it and get back to you. We are available by phone, text, email and social media messaging. We are often available to meet with guests and owners by request. Unlike owners who try to manage their properties from a remote location, we live here. While renters may be okay with booking a property online without any personal interaction, when they actually arrive at their vacation home, sometimes they want to know a real live human is available for them. We are! We are real live humans and we are personally available!
3 We have been in the rental management business for a while
Actually, that’s a bit of an understatement. In fact, we have over 35 years of
vacation rental management experience and expertise. We are also realtors
and vacation rental owners, ourselves. We know how to manage an owner’s
rental calendar in a way that will make the property stand out. We know
which questions to ask guests to ensure their vacation needs are met and how to
match up those needs with the exact right place for them to stay. We know
how to handle almost any situation that may arise, because we have been doing
this for so long. We don’t know everything about the rental management business
and we are learning and growing and changing every day to meet new and
unprecedented circumstances (like the COVID 19
Corona Virus Pandemic), but we do know quite a bit and we are pretty
good at what we do. To be in the same career field for this many years,
you have to love what you do. And we do love our jobs, our community and our
neighbors… and it shows!
4 We will market your property effectively
We coordinate directly with our local Convention and Visitors Bureau, as well as our local Chamber of Commerce. We attend local meetings with other island professionals, such as restaurant owners, photographers, and attractions managers. We actually know our government leaders in Gulf Shores and Orange Beach and consider them to be some of our best friends. This kind of local, face-to-face marketing creates word-of-mouth recommendations for potential renters and, oftentimes, someone’s personal recommendation is the best marketing you can get. We also manage our website in-house. Let’s face it, more people are shopping online now than ever before. Forget that national “big box” impersonal rental management site! We are able to physically visit each home to keep the most current information about each posted on the web. We provide our owners with professional photography, detailed home descriptions and provide extra services, like this blog, to draw potential guests in. Further, we have created online partnerships with groups like Xplor!e and RedSky, giving our guests extra options for discounted attractions and vacation insurance. This hands-on approach from our team allows owners the freedom to just enjoy their purchase without the worry of keeping up with the day-to-day details of managing it. We promote your home, so you don’t have to.
5 We take the hassle out of your rental management business
Did we say “hassle”? Well, what we meant was we will do things like take those midnight calls from late arrivals. We will make sure they get inside your vacation home when they are supposed to. When a water heater leaks (and it will!) we will send the repair team out to fix it. You don’t have to hear the upset voice from a guest and you don’t have to follow up with the repair company. We will help make sure the pool attached to your property is clean and well maintained. We will send a quality control team behind our cleaning experts to verify your home is ready between guests. We will make every effort to ensure only small dogs are allowed inside our pet friendly homes and only renters who are age appropriate lease from us. We will handle the issues when these guidelines are stretched (and they will be!). These are just a few examples of the issues we tackle for our owners and guests. We handle them professionally and in a manner that keeps our guests coming back to your home time and time again. We take the guesswork and potential fraud out of online booking. But, most of all, as your rental home guest liaison, we will collect your rental fees for you and ensure you are paid fairly, completely, and in a timely manner.
We know deciding whether or not to let a rental management company oversee the daily operations of your vacation home is a challenge. We know it is appealing to try to do it yourself and maybe save yourself a little money. But are you really saving? How much is your time worth? Why not let us handle the day-to-day business part of managing your rental home and allow you the pleasure of enjoying your vacation home? Let us put our family oriented vacation rental management expertise at Sunset Properties to work for you. After all, you just bought your dream vacation home in your favorite escape-to place, right?
Well, go ahead! Grab a Pina Colada and escape! And just sit back and look for your rental income check in the mail!
251.543.1370
