Evaluating Vacation Rental Areas

[Jeff Deville]

I'm looking at vacation rentals in areas I've never personally visited, and was wondering what everyone did to evaluate the level of demand in a particular area.  If you can add think of anything I'm missing from this list, please weigh in.

• Find nearby comps, and search on VRBO, homeaway, and AirBNB to get a sense of the rates, occupancy rate, and degree of seasonality
• Look for local property managers and ask them about the area, and their rates
• Search TripAdvisor to get a sense of the clientele as well as the popular restaurants. Then call the restaurants to see if they're open year round.

Are there other data sources available?

[Nayt Grochowski]

Hi @Jeff Deville

I am getting into VRBO myself too, have my first property in escrow. I always like to share notes with others to see what others use for calculations for getting into a VRBO property. I always look at the math before I invest in a property and like to share with others to see if anyone else has something to add.

Here is  sample of my latest deal - I use Google Sheets to store all my documents so I can review and update it anywhere: