How To Rent Vacation Properties by Owner Third Edition: The Complete Guide to Buy, Manage, Furnish, Rent, Maintain and Advertise Your Vacation Rental Investment Paperback – November 1, 2013

We had already purchased our vacation home and decided to rent it out when I bought this book. I had no idea where to begin.Christine covers everything on how to buy, furnish, and rent your vacation home. The most valuable information for me was how to do all this from a distance (we are a 7-hour drive from our cottage). From hiring cleaning people (and backups), handling keys, staying organized, creating a great web site, taking good photos (highly valuable - I have the best pictures of all the cottages in town!), writing a catchy description, to taking inquiries, dealing with problems, screening renters, the list goes on and on. And the best thing is, it's written very clearly and concisely and with very little fluff. I read it cover to cover in about 3 hours, and I regularly refer back to the different sections to refresh my memory as needed.I have recommended this book to many others who are struggling with their rentals. As a matter of fact, this book helped me so much and I have had such great success with our rental, that another owner has asked me to manager HER two cotttages also! Christine, can you write a book about how to manage property for others???All in all, high praise for this MOST useful book.

So we had been looking at property out of state as a rental property. The process took about two years but it all started with this COMPREHENSIVE little book. This lady knows her stuff. IT may not be as in depth in EVERY single area but it gives you a good overall summary to where you don't feel overwhelmed with information. She puts the cookies on the bottom shelf and helps you to understand in simple terms what something like this entails. Long story short - based on her book we found the perfect condo and decided to go for it. EVERYTHING that I have done in our purchase, closing, insurance, search, decoration has all stemmed from what I learned in this little book. We are so excited to begin this journey in owning our own little piece of paradise. Do yourself a favor and get this book. You WON'T be disappointed!!!

Book reads easily, without too much or too little detail. My wife and I read chapters back and forth to each other. Gave me much more confidence entering into larger concerns, finances of vacation rental realm. I got the impression some chapters were a legacy of bygone times: Details about getting checks from renters, pen-and-ink handling of bookings early in the book, vs. later references to online payments made me wish for an edition written YESTERDAY to address the rapid evolution of internet business and evaluation of current online sites.

This was the first book recommended to us that we read back in 2014 when we were planning to dive into the world of Vacation Rental ownership. It still is one of the absolute best books on the subject and (unlike many) was written by an author with practical experience in a very thoughtful way. Following her guidance we ran a very successful vacation rental home and then expanded to a second rental home a few years ago. Both homes are a joy to own, easy to run and both are highly rated with great reviews. Thank you Christine!

This was a great guide for anyone who is thinking about buying a vacation rental. It was our acquisition guide and I know it saved us from making a huge mistake. We followed the advice and it really helped us determine which home to purchase and which properties to avoid. It covers nearly everything you need to know about buying, owning and operating a vacation rental. My wife and I highly recommend it.

Definitely the best book on purchasing and renting vacation properties, although that's not saying much; the selection is pretty limited. While I appreciated the author's thoroughness and obvious enthusiasm for her subject, there isn't much here that doesn't fall under the category of "common sense" - and almost all the information can be found for free online, especially on the website (HomeAway) by which the author is employed. If you're willing to do a little bit of Googling for it you can save yourself twenty bucks. If you prefer something you can hold and take notes on (and the extra wide margins and spacing in this book leave plenty of room for that; it likely could have been printed using half the number of pages), though, by all means get yourself a copy.

The author did a very good job describing the ins/outs of vacation rentals and how to set up a process to manage one (or many). She makes a very good argument for self managing but also explains other management techniques. I enjoyed reading this book and feel I received more knowledge/value than the price I paid. This is one of three vacation rental books I have recently read and it's the one I feel I learned the most from. I would buy this book again.

This book we've relied on for many tips on how to improve our vacation home product that we offer year round. We own a company, Utah's Best Vacation Rentals, [...] that offers year round vacation home rentals in Salt Lake City and Park City.We purchased this book to learn more about VRBO and how best to setup our homes with the guest in mind. There are many complexities we had questions about that in some small way the author of this book touched on and was useful for the $15 we spent, but nowhere near comprehensive.For homeowners this probably would be a valuable tool, especially if you have never equipped or setup a private residence for a vacation home.If you have to pay over $25 it's probably not the best value. If you are ever in Utah, consider looking us up if you want to experience many of the tips in this book in a real life vacation rental home.