FL Vacation Rental - Minimum stays and specific check in days?

Question

Attention all warm weather / beach vacation rental owners... during peak season what are you requiring as minimum stay?  Is 1 week pretty standard? If you are doing 1 week minimum, do you require check in on specific day of week (Friday or Saturday)?  Do you use minimum stays during off-peak times? Have a new vacation rental home in Cape Coral, FL. Will be furnishing in June and then listing. Thanks for the input!

Nicole A. · Answer

Many short-term rentals I see online have 3 day minimums. You can always hop on VRBO or AirBNB to look up similar rentals in your area and compare their minimum-required stays.

Jeremy Baker · Answer

Hi @Curtis H. please feel free to send me a private message and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have about investing in the Kihei area!

Curtis H. · Answer

@Jeremy Baker

I too love Kihei/Maui area and was curious how you found your properties? I am not looking to be competition with 10 units, I just want to buy one unit, let the short term income pay for the unit in 15 years, and then have a place to vacation for weeks at a time and book out the rest. We have family members willing to give us the time share in Maui, but 1 week isn't enough for me. I want to be there for 3-6 weeks at a time, and this seems like a great way to get there. I plan on retiring from my 9-5 in 12-15 years, and it would be my dream to have a paid off (or nearly paid off) place in Hawaii to go to any time I wanted.

I feel the market is too hot now, but when the next downturn comes I want to pounce on it. Or if a pretty distressed unit comes along in the meantime I can jump on that too.

Thanks!

Peter R. · Answer

Edit: This was a reply to a post that's no longer there.

Corlan M. · Answer

Whoops! Wrong forum post!

Blair Russell · Answer

@Selena Walsh

During your peak season in a beach vacation place you will probably want a week minimum with a specific turnaround day like Friday or Sunday.  You don't want to lose 3 or 4 nights of income a week to people just coming in for a short time during high season. It also makes scheduling changeovers easier. Low season doesn't matter as long as you can do the changeover on whatever days people come. Check which owners use around you because often depending where the usual guests are coming from certain days are better for them to begin their holiday.

Jeremy Baker · Answer

HI @Selena Walsh.  While I don't know the Florida market well, my wife and I own a couple of vacation rentals in Kihei, Maui.  Our "high season" runs from Dec 15 - March 31 as it's the time of year where the weather is worst where most people live and they tend to want to escape to Hawaii plus it's the time of year the humpback whales are visiting Maui too.

We may not be the best example to go by since most people visiting Maui will do so for at least a week and I would assume FL vacation rentals will get many more 3 or 4 day weekend visitors.  So for us, we do have a 3 day minimum, but our average stay is right around 10 days.  However, we do get a few stays that are 3-5 days and those are usually guests that are visiting multiple islands.  These stays are nice as they sometimes fill in some of the small gaps between visits, which is why we advertise a 3 day minimum instead of 7.  Hope this helps!

FL Vacation Rental - Minimum stays and specific check in days?

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