Vacation Rental Caretakers

Until recently owners had two options when deciding how to manage their vacation rental.  You either try it on your own or select a rental management company.  A new bread of service providers have emerged.  For either a flat fee or a low commission per booking small operations have started offering care-taking services.  Some companies offer a la carte services and can fill any gaps that a management company use to be necessary for. Understanding what services are provided and locating a vacation rental caretaker is not as straight forward as your other management options.  A little trial and error may be necessary but with the right fit your life and adventure as a owner of a vacation rental may become much easier.

Finding Rental Caretakers

As this is a fairly new concept, locating a vacation rental caretaker is generally not as easy as grabbing a phone book and looking for a service.  Most times a rental caretaker actually finds you.  We receive numerous contacts from companies offering their service via our listings on vacation rental websites.  There is also a direct correlation on how big the demand in your market is for their service and the amount of rental caretakers companies.  Another way to is to build a relationship with a neighbor of friend in the town your rental is located.  Depending on what you need finding good help can be relatively easy but may require trial and error.  Ultimately the easiest way to deal with your property is hiring a property manager service. 

What to Expect from a Rental Caretaker

If you decide to hire a care-taker to aide you with your rental property you may wonder what to expect.  Each company we've encountered offers a wide variety of services for an even wider variety of price ranges.  The best thing to do is to sit down with the potential care-taker company and tell them exactly what you need.  Have them propose a price and itemized service contract before moving forward.  If the ground work is established from the start the chances of costly surprises or miscommunication are limited.