Do You Need a Property Manager?

Why should I pay someone to manage my vacation rental property at the Lake of the Ozarks (or any other property for that matter)? This is something that you should seriously consider before purchasing a rental property. Most companies charge anywhere from 30% to 50% to manage a vacation rental property depending on the location and length of the rental season. Typically the longer the rental season, the lower the percentage and the shorter the season, the higher the percentage.

Here are some of the things you should consider when looking to hire a rental manager.  How much experience do they have in managing a property similar to yours and in your specific location?  What types of services do they offer for their percentage?  How much is their percentage?  Are there any hidden costs, i.e. charging extra for handling maintenance issues, lawn care, cleaning, etc.  You should know what the costs for those services are prior to signing a contract for management.

Marketing and Advertising

Marketing is going to play a huge factor in how well your property rents and ultimately how successful you are.  And it isn't always how much is spent.  A rental company could spend a hundred thousand dollars advertising in Australia for the Lake of the Ozarks and I doubt that they would see a very good return on their investment.  Likewise they could spend $150 on a vacation rental website that would give them a few thousand dollars or more in rentals.  So the right question to ask is, "what types and where" they are advertising.  If they say print advertising within a 50 mile radius, I would recommend looking somewhere else.

Damages, Cancellations and Repairs

Damages, cancellations and how they handle repairs are a few things that you should research before choosing a company.  Who pays for damages?  Do they require a deposit?  What happens when a guest cancels their reservation?  If a repair is needed are you notified over a certain amount?  Who pays for the housekeeping?  What happens if the AC goes out during a guest rental?  Does the management company offer preventative services, spring cleaning services, etc.

Do Your Research 

Ultimately, if you are going to hire a manager you want to find one that you are comfortable with, that offers the level of services that you desire and that has a successful track record.  You may want to speak with other owners on that company's program, get professional references and see if that company has a good or bad reputation in the community.

Too often home and condo owners don't do much research when choosing a property manager and they can end up with a bad experience.  Asking the right questions and interviewing three or four managers before choosing one will make your vacation rental ownership more successful in the long run.

Russell Burdette is the owner of Your Lake Vacation, a professional vacation rental management company at the Lake of the Ozarks since 1986.  If you would like more info on renting your home or condo as a vacation rental please call 573-365-3367 or email russell@yourlakevacation.com.

For more information please call us toll free at 1-877-284-0267!!

YourLakeVacation.com

4571 Osage Beach Pkwy, Suite A
Osage Beach, MO 65065
Local - 573-365-3367
Fax - 573-365-5076  

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Getting to Know the Owner of Your Lake Vacation!

Family (Left to Right): Zechariah, Tammy, Eden, Russell, Elijah, Erin 

Whether you are coming to vacation at the Lake of the Ozarks or you own a rental home here, you want to know that you are being taken care of.  You need a property management company you can trust.  If the AC goes out, you want to know you have someone to call or your vacation will be ruined.  You want to make sure someone is monitoring your rental property at the Lake of the Ozarks and its being cleaned after each guest so you don't come home to a trashed home.  So this week we thought we would give you a little more information about the Owner of Your Lake Vacation, so you can get to know the person that will be taking care of you!  We asked him some questions and here are his responses.

1. How did you get into the real estate business? 
I stumbled into it by accident.  I answered an ad for a marketing director for a real estate company and soon I was managing their property management/vacation rental company and then I ended up buying the business.

2. Who is your family? 
I have been married to my wife, Tammy for 16 years and have children Erin, Justin, Elijah, Zechariah and Eden, plus a few cats and dogs.

3. What kind of music do you listen to? 
My favorite style is classic rock which for kids today may be considered “oldies”.  Groups like the Eagles, Boston, Journey, Bad Company and Led Zeppelin.  My all-time favorite band is the Beatles and each year I try to catch the Liverpool Legends performance at Main Street Music Hall.  The show is awesome and spans the entire Beatles career complete with authentic instruments and costumes.  Better yet, if you close your eyes, you would swear it was the Beatles playing, they are that good!

Russell and Son Elijah enjoying a Baseball Game! 

4. What do you enjoy doing when you are not working? 
Playing softball, coaching baseball, doing something with the kids, reading and watching baseball, on tv or live in person.  Go Yankees (and Cards)!

5. What is something about you that no one else knows?  
I am president of Freedom Through Christ Ministries.  We operate a transitional housing program for guys getting out of jail or prison. We currently house up to 20 men in two large homes on our 7.5 acre property that we recently purchased near Camdenton.  We also operate a mobile food pantry for Camden County from our ministry property feeding over 400 families each month and we just received a $500,000 grant to begin building a permanent food pantry to better serve the community.  On top of that our organization is involved in jail ministry and I teach a weekly bible study to the inmates at the Camden County Jail in Camdenton.  I have been doing that now for 13 years.

6. What motivates you at work? 
Helping our guests realize their vacation dreams and helping our owners realize income from their second home or condo at the Lake of the Ozarks which in many cases is what allows them to have that second property.

7. What is your favorite restaurant? 
Here at the Lake it would be the Cozy Coney Café, they have a great breakfast any time of day.  All-time favorite anywhere would be PF Changs in St. Louis.

8. Who is the one person that you admire the most?
A person that I would like to meet from history and that I think had an incredible effect on human kind was Nikola Tesla.  Many people have heard of the band named after him or the car that is now named after him but most people don’t realize all the things that he invented that they use every single day and Tesla could just visualize new inventions and then build them from his visualization and they usually worked the first time he tried them.  He developed alternating current which now powers the entire world, built the first hydro-electric plant at Niagra Falls in New York, discovered radio waves and developed the first radio (even though Marconi gets credit in the history books), developed radio controlled machines (the navy dismissed his remote control boat as a toy and today our military operates drones and other weapons via his invention), wireless transmission, X-rays, the electric motor, lasers, remote control and robotics just to name a few of his more than 200 inventions.

Freedom Through Christ Ministries' Mobile Food Pantry

9. What is your favorite movie and why? 
My all-time favorite movie is a WW2 movie called Kelly’s Heroes.  It is serious, funny and dramatic all at once and has an incredible cast of characters including Clint Eastwood, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, Don Rickles, Carrol O’Conner and Gavin MacLeod plus a few others.  Kelly gets his band of misfits to go behind enemy lines in search of a ton of gold to make them all rich.

10. Are you involved in any charitable groups? 
Freedom Through Christ Ministries and the Lighthouse Mission.  Again helping men with addictions to live a full life in Christ as opposed to living a defeated life struggling with their addictions and going in and out of jail and prison.  We offer these men hope where many just want to discard them or give up on them.

Russell and his family purchased Your Lake Vacation in 2008 after managing the company for several years.  The company, previously known as Al Elam Property Management was established in 1986 as a property managment and vacation rental company.  Since then we have helped thousands of guests with their vacation planning.  In fact we have served more than 10,000 guests staying a total of more than 40,000 nights in the past 25 years.  Today Al Elam Property Management is a locally owned, family business dedicated to providing visitors an exceptional vacation experience in one of the many private homes or condos that the company manages.  Our hope is that we will be able to serve you and your family as well as we would our own family.  We strive to carry on the tradition that was started by Mr. Elam more than sixty years ago!

For more information please call us toll free at 1-877-284-0267!!

YourLakeVacation.com
4571 Osage Beach Pkwy, Suite A
Osage Beach, MO 65065
Local - 573-365-3367
Fax - 573-365-5076  

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The Benefits of Professional Management for Your Vacation Rental Property

How much can you handle? 

You’ve purchased your new vacation rental property.  Your first guest has arrived and is all settled in.  Shortly after their arrival you get a call, “There is no hot water.”  You guide them to the breaker box and they successfully reset the breaker.  Problem solved.  An hour later you get a call.  “I cannot connect to the Wi-Fi.”  You guide them through resetting the router and they are able to connect.  Then your phone rings at 2:30 a.m. and your renter says, “The AC is not working and its 85 degrees inside the condo.  What are you going to do about it?”  What do you do or who are you going to call?  These and numerous other situations occur on a regular basis when you have a vacation rental property.

Professional, Reliable Contacts

A professional manager is going to have staff and vendors available 24/7 to deal with any type of situation that could occur during your guest's stay.  They will also have the professional contacts to take care of your property whether it is HVAC, appliance, plumbing, dock, lawn care or any other type of problem.  These contacts have probably been working with the property manager for years and are more likely to get the problem fixed quickly to keep their loyal customer.  

Property Clean-Up

Once the guest leaves, the home or condo is dirty and in need of cleaning.  A property manager is going to have their own housekeeping staff or they will contract with a housekeeping service company to provide professional cleaning services.  The manager should also have separate staff that inspects the housekeeping to ensure nothing was missed, to look for possible damage to the property and to ensure that everything is in good working order and ready for the next guest. 

Marketing 

Another aspect is the marketing of your property to potential guests.  A property manager is going to be spending thousands of dollars each year on advertising to attract guests.  Our company operates three websites, advertises on about 10-15 different vacation rental websites, advertises in the Lake of the Ozarks Vacation Guide, has an on-line presence with the official Missouri travel website, has a physical location that guests can visit and operates a physical visitors information center.

Sales and Accounting

In addition to the marketing, a professional manager is going to have a sales staff that knows all about the Lake and is prepared to take payments, send contracts and coordinate the entire guest stay from booking, to arrival, to departure.  The manager also has an accounting department that handles your monthly statements, expenses, income distribution and yearly 1099’s.  This helps make your tax preparation so much easier at the end of the year.

Other services that should be provided are travel insurance, damage protection plans, contracts, preventive maintenance and interior design consultation.  These are all things to consider when trying to decide whether you want to try and handle the renting of the property yourself or if you should hire a professional.

Russell Burdette is the owner of Your Lake Vacation, a professional vacation rental management company at the Lake of the Ozarks since 1986.  If you would like more info on renting your home or condo as a vacation rental, please call 573-365-3367 or e-mail russell@yourlakevacation.com.

For more information please call us toll free at 1-877-284-0267!!

YourLakeVacation.com
4571 Osage Beach Pkwy, Suite A
Osage Beach, MO 65065
Local - 573-365-3367
Fax - 573-365-5076  

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How to Choose a Vacation Rental Manager

Things to Think About Before Handing Your Home Over to A Property Manager

You have a second home or condo at the Lake of the Ozarks and you realize that you are not using it as much as you thought you would, or you have decided that you want to off-set some of your expenses for that property.  Now what do you do?

Finding the right company to manage your vacation rental property at the Lake of the Ozarks can make a big difference in your overall experience.  Are you just looking for some additional income or do you want to make as much money as possible?  Whatever your situation, you need to make your expectations clear when you are interviewing potential managers.

Experience. 

Obviously experience counts.  Find out how long they have been managing property and how successful they have been in renting properties similar to yours? Beware of any company that promises a certain number of rental night’s or income; however, a good company will be able to give you potential income/number of rental nights based on their past history with similar properties.

Services. 

What types of support services do they offer?  Do they offer housekeeping, maintenance, interior design, AC & appliance repair or landscaping and yard work and are they available 24/7?  Since this is your second home, maybe you don't visit it enough to catch those small maintenance issues that pop up.  Often times not fixing those issues right away could lead to bigger problems down the road. And do you dread cleaning up after yourself while you are on vacation?  Having a housekeeper through your management company, allows you to relax and enjoy your second home.  Having someone to monitor your second home year round will ease your mind while you are away.

Marketing. 

Next you will want to ask how they market their properties.  Do they provide plenty of pictures, virtual tours, videos and information about their properties?  Do they utilize social media, digital marketing and e-blasts.  Is their website easy to navigate and is the presentation professional?  In addition to their website, how else do they advertise their properties?

Damage Control. 

Since damage is always a possibility, how do they screen their potential guests?  How do they handle damages?  Do they offer damage protection?  Have them give you examples of past damages and how they handled the situations.

Other Properties. 

Some companies rent their properties on a rotating basis.  If you have a nice property or a great location, companies using this procedure should be avoided.  Your hard work, décor, amenities and location should be allowed to work in your favor.  A company that presents all of their properties in the same manner and allows your features to sell your property to potential renters is your best bet. Wouldn’t you want to be able to choose if you were a guest and not have to take the next unit in line?

Reputation. 

Your potential manager should also have good ethics and be truthful about the potential for your property.  Do they have a good reputation?  Do they belong to other professional organizations? You should be able to get references from current owners as well as from other professionals within the Lake Area community.  And finally, you should feel at ease and be comfortable with the potential manager.

Russell Burdette is the owner of Your Lake Vacation, a professional vacation rental management company at the Lake of the Ozarks since 1986.  If you would like more info on renting your home or condo as a vacation rental, please call 573-365-3367 or e-mail russell@yourlakevacation.com.


For more information please call us at  1-877-284-0267!!

YourLakeVacation.com
4571 Osage Beach Pkwy, Suite A
Osage Beach, MO 65065
Local - 573-365-3367
Fax - 573-365-5076  

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