Tucson, Tucson, Tucson… nine months out of the year you are practically perfect in every way; with your beautiful weather and many attractions it seems that over the years you have created your own little niche’ market for winter visitors and thereby Vacation Rentals which is bringing quite a pretty penny into our economy. Good Job, Tucson! Way to be progressive!
Furnished vacation rentals have been quite the topic of conversation lately as these are the months (Jan-May) that draw the snow-escapees to our beautiful mountainous little Tucson.
I know, I know, we generally hear the cliche’ “turning a house into a home”, right? Right. With that in mind, my husband and I have decided to turn our cozy little single fam residence into just that, a furnished vacation rental…FUN! Definitely an experience and a lot of work to prep, but really cleansing and hopefully profitable! But, what needs to happen to make it “happen”? What I can tell you so far is that we have been digging through years of garage pile-up and I now am BFF’s with the guys that run the goodwill truck on Thornydale/Magee. Know what else I can tell you? It feels really good to get rid of “stuff”. We have way to much stuff…ALL four of us!
Room by room, the cleansing is continuing. So far, My son’s room is completely ready to go…closet empty, nooks and crannies dust-free, walls washed…ahhhh. My room is almost finished, my daughter’s room is getting close and the rest? The rest of the house is in shambles, but that’s the way these things go. They always get worse before they get better!
Well, we are not VRBO (vacation rentals by owner) categorically because as I hope you have surmised by now, I am a realtor and in addition to site-sales and residential resale, I deal heavily with property management also. Year after year I see the high profit that furnished vacation rentals bring in during the high season when they are managed well.
About two years ago, we invested in our first rental property. A really cute little 2bd condo with great views at the top of Skyline/Campbell. Side note: As a teenager, I had always told myself I would someday buy a home at the top of Campbell. It was an amazing deal, we’ve been really pleased with the results, and though it may not have been quite what I had envisioned as teen; one could say that I’ve successfully managed to achieve one of my earliest financial goals. Thats kinda cool, isn’t it?
Even still, my poor husband has been forced to endure me jabbering on about vacation rentals. Despite his attempts to tune me out, he must have absorbed something because 2 weeks ago he got the bright idea that we should give the vacation rental concept a shot…in our home! I’m always up for an adventure and hey, why not? What a great way to jump-start spring cleaning for the year and make a few bucks while we’re at it! We will of course be utilizing the service that the company I hang my license with runs. We do an awesome job and are the largest property management company in Tucson which increases the likelihood that my property will be rented at top dollar during the peak of the season. I’m totally stoked, but really exhausted.
Like I said before, prepping a home to become a furnished vacation rental really is turning a home into a house. It means depersonalizing it, yet keeping it warm and inviting. This is actually trickier than one would think. Fortunately my husband has the gift for staging, because I don’t. We’ve never been very good at adhering to stereo-typical gender roles and I’m kinda proud of that. He’s a bit more artistic than I am and he has a great eye for color and balance in a room. I am better at popping the hood of the car open and checking the fluids…it works for us, what can I say? Either way, we are really excited for the up and coming adventure and I will definitely keep you posted on the experience.