Updated over 9 years ago on . Most recent reply
Gatlinburg/Pidgeon Forge Property Mabagers
Looking at investing in vacation rental properties in Gatlinburg, TN. Our interest started when talking to friends about their properties near Destin. However, I'm not a beach girl and my husband refused to ever go if we bought there. After some research, we're seriously looking at Gatlinburg. Does anyone have any recommended Property Managers/Real Estate agents for us to work with out there? We're in a 1031 situation (having recently sold a local duplex). So, I need to work with someone responsive who knows the area and will get us off to a good start. Feel free to PM me or reply. Thanks so much for your assistance!
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@Jeff Piscioniere - I am David's business partner and co-founder.
I would definitely agree with you that self-managing is a great option for some owners, but does require an investor to understand their own skill set and align it with their desires for their asset performance appropriately (If max ROI is desired, do they have the skillset necessary to produce top revenue numbers, etc.?).
With legacy property management companies, the hidden fees typically eat another 10% of fees adding up to another 10-12% of revenue on average. This is one (among many) reasons we entered this market when we launched our business venture. We were the first and only 'all inclusive' Property Management firm in the area. Since entering, some of the bigger players have tried to imitate us, but their contracts still have nickel and dime fees littered in there here and there.
Beyond the fees, our studies and real experience show that we're typically able to increase a owner/operators income significantly enough to pay for our management commission and keep them hands off. Typically owners think that they're producing top income by booking out a lot of nights but fail to understand the value of economic vacancies. Typically, if your nightly occupancy is more than two standard deviations above the market average (200-220 nights annually) then you're under-priced and leaving money on the table. Being under priced and overbooked also increases wear & tear which reduces over-all profitability.
In addition - for our brand, we're developing technology in-house that allows us to screen renters based on a number of factors that keeps undesirable guests out (or less likely to sneak in) reducing overall cost-of-ownership.
In addition, because we have the resources to scrape pricing/occupancy data of all major competitors in the area, we're able to track and identify occupancy trends before they happen and make competitive pricing decisions in real-time that increase over-all revenue/profitability for the owner.
Again - there are definitely folks who are great fits managing their own units, and it sounds like you definitely fit that mold. That being said, there are huge advantages that shouldn't be ignored that come with going with an agency like ours that is technologically advanced and can provide financial benefits that simply are not available to individual owner/operators currently.
I'm good friends with Phillip & the whole Derosia Family and use Steve on my own personal home. They're a great group of folks and you're doing well if you're working with them. We've worked with a lot of people in the area, and have had difficulty finding people as good to work with as they are.