Is this a typical rental year?

Our place at WaterColor seems to be right on target with last year, which was our best year yet. We began renting in the Spring of 2003.

2007 was our best year overall.
2008 was good but not as many shoulder bookings. Just a tad down.
2009 - we were booked for 5 weeks in Spring which is good, but we gave discounts. We had one empty early June week, but the rest of the summer is booked, after giving a few discounts. Almost every email from VRBO is asking for a discount. This will probably be a down year for us, but not terrible by any means. Bookings are coming in later.
We've been renting our house in a prime Old Seagrove location since 2001. We have a lot more competition now than we did when we started.

BTW - We have many return guests and the feedback they are giving us is that Seaside is more packed, especially at night, than they ever remember. Doesn't look the economy is down to them. I think this is partly due to some family friendly and good food choices. Our guests also say that they are pleased with the changes in restaurant choices in Seaside.

Good year for us. Have booked 200+ nights/year for the past four years, this year is no less, maybe will end up with more than average. Also, happily, we have early booked a couple of months for this winter.
Personally, I refuse to participate in the recession. 😀

We're having a great rental season this year. A little slow at the beginning, but really picked up speed after Spring Break. I am still answering inquires and we are booking into August and beyond.

One Seagrove Place we have the best rental year to date and we have owned it about 10 years. Every year has always been better than the year before, other than 2005, which after that hurricane season I'm sure everyone was down. We are already pretty well booked into the fall.

It seems to me that WC has been better than ever and I've been there since it opened. No numbers to quote but I see the activity on a daily basis. I think people opted for a drive-to vacation this year and between the swine flu and drug wars nobody in their right mind would go to Mexico.

Thanks everyone for your insights. This is our first year renting and I was trying to gauge if this year was average or not. We've had pretty good success and hopefully next year will be even better! Can't wait to make our "maintenance" trip in October!

:funn:

For the watercolor owners are you seeing any resistance being so far off the beach? i'm about 1/2 the distance of watercolor to the beach and i'm worried about resistance to that.realistically how many total weeks of the year can one rent? how are rentals in may and sept and oct? out of those 3 months or 12 weeks whats a reasonable rent time? can you get 8 weeks or so out of thos 3 months? i'm living down here my first summer of owning and to be honest it doesn't look that crowded and i've been ciming here every year since 1990. thanks

We are booked! Except for next week the summer is spoken for. I don't think we'll be able to come down in Aug :idontno:

I don't think we'll be able to come down in Aug :idontno:

How about next week? I've read somewhere there is a great deal going on a condo with free mojitos and a beach chair set up.

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How about next week? I've read somewhere there is a great deal going on a condo with free mojitos and a beach chair set up.

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Don't think the thouht hasn't crossed my mind but right now doesn't look likely.

Rentals

Contrary to all of the other posters, our rentals are off big time

Contrary to all of the other posters, our rentals are off big time

I figured it was only the "successful rental owners" who were responding....I know there are many others who are missing the mark.


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Well, a week ago I would have said it has been a bad rental year. But I have been inundated with VRBO requests in the past week. That being said, May was bad. Dunno why.

June filled up really fast. July and August were slow, but are okay now. September usually books a little later.

This year people seem to be looking to save some money and are doing the short jaunts. If I had the patience and luck I would have made out better with daily rentals, but decided to just lower my rate with a no haggling policy. That worked out better. I am not gulffront, but do have views and I am not in one of the higher end developments, ie; Watercolor. Also, I noticed an increase in last minute rentals, especially on a larger property I have. I am guessing there were many waiting to see what their employment situation looked like first, gas rates, etc; and then having to coordinate with the group.

We've done quite well. Our spring was better than previous years. Had to give some discounts for a couple of weeks in summer, but we have booked up and now the fall is looking quite promising.

My observation from the beach umbrella is Rosemary is killin it. Their beach looked packed while I was down there. High Pointe seemed 1/2 full but honestly it always seems 1/2 full. I'm not sure everyone there rents which is awesome for the pool and beach. We have a great base of repeat customers and are very thankful for them.

My observation from the restaurants is way more crowded than last year. That being said we did not eat out much this year. Ate lots of frozen pizzas. But the nights we did venture out the restaurants seemed more crowded than last year.

My observation fromt the traffic... ugh... no difference, it seemed packed both going and coming to SoWal.