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Needing information about renting units

SteveDude

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We recently went to a CWA sales meeting and learned about renting units to help offset some of the maintenance fees. Basically, we were told to buy units for weekends that will be in high demand, send the information to ExtraHolidays.com (where they keep 40%), and then wait for some money to come in the mail. We made several reservations on the Wyndham website and now are just waiting for our units to be rented.

Because we are new to this, I am still unsure what is the best process.
1. What are good weekends? I found several cities with music festivals or Mardi Gras or NASCAR weekends. Are these good? What are some other events that draws in a large crowd where people will rent a condo unit?
2. If you use ExtraHolidays, about how long does it take for the unit to be rented? Do you need to make reservations 6+ months in advance for the unit to be rented? Does ExtraHolidays rent on a first-come, first-rented policy or is it just luck on the order that the unit is rented?
3. The salesman said to use ExtraHolidays. However, it also hinted that there are other sites that will rent the units at a better rate. We like that ExtraHolidays takes care of all the legal stuff about renting units, but there must be some competitors. What sites do people use to rent their units?
 

schoolmarm

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I don't rent units, but if I did I wouldn't use Extra Holidays. They take 40%, and if you have a week-long reservation and they only rent a day or two, you get the proceeds from only those days and lose the rest.

There are people here who rent quite a bit. They will give you better advice. People use this site, ebay, and all kinds of other ways to rent out units.

Ron used to rent out most of New Orleans for Mardi Gras and Jazz Week. Someone else rented weekends at Atlantic City. Daytona NASCAR fills up fast, too.

There are some people who rent first then reserve. Others reserve popular weeks and if they don't rent, they release them before the 15-day cutoff to lose points.

I use all my points...don't even have any to rent out! :)
 

Dave Landry

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We recently went to a CWA sales meeting and learned about renting units to help offset some of the maintenance fees. Basically, we were told to buy units for weekends that will be in high demand, send the information to ExtraHolidays.com (where they keep 40%), and then wait for some money to come in the mail. We made several reservations on the Wyndham website and now are just waiting for our units to be rented.

Because we are new to this, I am still unsure what is the best process.
1. What are good weekends? I found several cities with music festivals or Mardi Gras or NASCAR weekends. Are these good? What are some other events that draws in a large crowd where people will rent a condo unit?
2. If you use ExtraHolidays, about how long does it take for the unit to be rented? Do you need to make reservations 6+ months in advance for the unit to be rented? Does ExtraHolidays rent on a first-come, first-rented policy or is it just luck on the order that the unit is rented?
3. The salesman said to use ExtraHolidays. However, it also hinted that there are other sites that will rent the units at a better rate. We like that ExtraHolidays takes care of all the legal stuff about renting units, but there must be some competitors. What sites do people use to rent their units?


Extra holidays is not a good venue to rent. They keep too much plus if it doesn't rent you lose your points. Definitely a losing proposition. You can rent in your own using this site. Craigslist , and Facebook with a much better chance of breaking even or making a little more. Definitely don't buy points expecting to rent for a profit as it is very competitive.
 

Avislo

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The Wyndham sales pitch to buy to rent out units with its various versions is nothing new.

Renting for profit can be a tricky business. Be careful.
 

am1

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Most will not make it. It can work but takes a lot of time an expierience. That was before the changes last year which will have made it harder.

I reserved 100 of units at a time and always managed to get the units discounted and upgraded to 3 and 4 bedrooms from the smallest unit at the resort. The 10 nightly unit limit made it hard, the policy of only having one room in each name so many days after booking would make what I did impossible.

If you only are renting a few rooms at a time it can be done but the money will not be there and you will not have the repeat customers.
 

Jan M.

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Since the changes in 2017 I would never recommend buying more points than you are sure you can use for yourself for the sole purpose of renting.

There is a lot of competition out there if you are trying to rent. It takes time to establish a number of repeat renters and even repeat renters will price shop. Unless you have an experienced person to hold your hand there is a huge learning curve to being successful at renting. You have to put time and effort into it and you will deal with headaches you don't want with your renters and sometimes the resorts too. All of that is why some owners are willing to have Extra Holidays take 40%. Even with EH there are still some things you need to learn.

Many non VIP owners and even VIP owners who aren't able to get their discount on the number of points needed for the reservations and the free upgrades can find it difficult sometimes to make their cost on reservations. For non VIP owners their cost would be their maintenance fees on the number of points used for the reservation, the transaction fee, the guest certificate fee, in a few cases possibly even the cost for more housekeeping credits, the PayPal fee and the eBay, Redweek, Extra Holidays fee.
 

chapjim

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Since the changes in 2017 I would never recommend buying more points than you are sure you can use for yourself for the sole purpose of renting.

There is a lot of competition out there if you are trying to rent. It takes time to establish a number of repeat renters and even repeat renters will price shop. Unless you have an experienced person to hold your hand there is a huge learning curve to being successful at renting. You have to put time and effort into it and you will deal with headaches you don't want with your renters and sometimes the resorts too. All of that is why some owners are willing to have Extra Holidays take 40%. Even with EH there are still some things you need to learn.

Many non VIP owners and even VIP owners who aren't able to get their discount on the number of points needed for the reservations and the free upgrades can find it difficult sometimes to make their cost on reservations. For non VIP owners their cost would be their maintenance fees on the number of points used for the reservation, the transaction fee, the guest certificate fee, in a few cases possibly even the cost for more housekeeping credits, the PayPal fee and the eBay, Redweek, Extra Holidays fee.

Jan is correct. No longer can we make reservations 10-13 months before check-in, wait until 60 days before check-in, cancel and rebook, and use the recovered points to make more reservations.

I still make reservations 10-13 months before check-in but end up canceling a lot of them because I found a discounted/upgraded reservation inside the 60 day window. 90% of my rentals are reservations made within 60 days of check-in. I spend 10x the time searching for these reservations compared to what I used to spend. I'm losing customers that I've been renting to for years because I can't guarantee a reservation except at a price most find too high.

If you find yourself with more points than you can use in a year, go ahead and try the rental business. But, like Jan, I cannot recommend purchasing points with renting in mind. (One possible exception: if you are already VIP Platinum -- and no other level of VIP ownership -- and think you want to expand. But, you better have your procedures down pat.)
 
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ronparise

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My original goal when I started renting wyndham reservations was to cover all my maintenance fees with a percentage of my points..thereby getting a "free" vacation for myself each year ... I was able to do this successfully without playing the cancel/rebook/upgrade trick or discounts of any kind. I made 5 high value reservations at the 10 month mark and rented them over the following several months and was then able to go to Bonnet Creek for the week before Christmas.. You can probably still do this if you make the right reservations to rent

I dont think this would work with just any weekend. You cant get the prices you need to more than cover mf. And to make matters worse you cant have multiple reservations without guest confirms and if you are making speculative reservations you dont have a guest yet, so you need another set of guest confirmations when you finally get the reservations rented.. The extra $100 per reservation really eats into profits

I think the new rules have made it impossible to do large scale commercial renting any more, You can no longer get VIP with just resale contracts, and even if you are VIP you cant get discounts and upgrades on reservations made 10 or 13 months in advance. If you find yourself with unused points at the end of a year, go ahead and make a reservation to rent to offset some of your mf, but dont count on making a profit
 

am1

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For the last few years before I was out I had 3 platinum accounts. Even that did not have keep me from going over the 10 nightly unit limit. I had to get creative to move points between accounts. I would have thousands of reservations held at once. A lot to juggle.

That being said someone must be filling the void somehow. 3 and 4 bedrooms at bonnet creek every week of the year, 3 and 4 bedroom presidential units at Skyline Tower for weekends, a few 2 bedrooms for new years but demand could be soft and 2 - 4 bedrooms at Ocean Walk. Bike week, spring break, 4th of july, Biketoberfest, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years were good there.
 

kaljor

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It sounds like a full time job. Now that the dust has settled, are you relieved to be done with it?
 

ronparise

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It sounds like a full time job. Now that the dust has settled, are you relieved to be done with it?

I know you were asking am1 and I’m sure he will answer.

But I’m going to comment anyway

So speaking only for myself... like am1 I had multiple platinum accounts and like him I had over 1000 pending reservations most of the time. When my accounts were suspended I had 90 million points in reservations

But unlike am1 I didn’t work very hard at it. I was usually done what I had to do by noon.I had some regular customers and I kept New Orleans for myself. But most of my time was spent buying more points not renting them. I had “points managers” do most of the work with reservations and customers

I was not happy to lose it. Don’t get me wrong, things worked out ok. It was a great ride while it lasted. It’s just that I would have been happier if it had lasted a few years more
 

ecwinch

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That being said someone must be filling the void somehow. 3 and 4 bedrooms at bonnet creek every week of the year, 3 and 4 bedroom presidential units at Skyline Tower for weekends, a few 2 bedrooms for new years but demand could be soft and 2 - 4 bedrooms at Ocean Walk. Bike week, spring break, 4th of july, Biketoberfest, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years were good there.

I am sure some have tried - but it's probably a little bit harder to manage without the margins you enjoyed pre-system change.
 

Jan M.

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Woodstone and Summit at Massanutten - Both in RCI weeks used as Wyndham PICs
I am sure some have tried - but it's probably a little bit harder to manage without the margins you enjoyed pre-system change.

You may have understated the case when you said probably a little bit harder. I would guess it's very hard. I was always under the impression that the successful big time renters had enough reservations booked that they were able to do the book, cancel, re-book, upgrade process and retain the majority of their reservations at the 60 day window. They would start selling as soon as they had the reservations to get the big bucks for them and if they lost a few when it came down to the 60 day mark they were still able to cover what they sold and often got enough reservations back that they still had some left to sell.

Since the changes of last year I fully expected to see much higher prices on rentals and I haven't been seeing that. Maybe I'm not seeing it; are people getting higher prices? I've wondered if more people who rent are now renting at more of a break even point than in the past. Are the people who actually make a nice profit on their rentals are becoming fewer and fewer?
 

am1

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It sounds like a full time job. Now that the dust has settled, are you relieved to be done with it?

I would have preferred to keep going. But knew the music would stop sometime. I can do a lot more things now with the flexibility but work stops (mostly) when I leave where I live. Before I would work on the computer while traveling. Last year in Mexico was the first time that part really sunk in. All inclusive resort is great but from 11-3 I do it want to be in the sun so in the past work from the room or lobby bar. I missed getting up religiously at 5:50 with something to do. I still get up early but with not as much to do at that hour. I miss the cheap or "free vavations". Last year slummed it in a ramada for a few days in orlando. Change of location was nice but the hotel staff and some guests were miserable.

What's done is done and can only move forward.
 

ecwinch

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Yeah - even though I played the game on a minuscule scale compared you - there was a pace and sense of achievement that has disappeared since they shut down cancel-rebook.
 

SteveDude

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Thanks, everyone for your responses.

We don't have many points so we are trying to get about 5-10 rentals each year. So far I am thinking about renting some units for Comic-Con, LifeIsWonderful festival, SxSW and Austin City Limits festivals, bike week, biketoberfest, Jazz Festival, the national rodeo championship, and Mardi Gras. Surely there are other hotspots that will be in high demand at certain times of the year. Any suggestions.

So far, we have only used ExtraHolidays but I am thinking of using RedWeek (the limited resort locations and the high commission fees are a reason for the switch). Have people had good responses with posting rentals on RedWeek? Any suggestions for quicker sales or higher rental income?
 

chapjim

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You may have understated the case when you said probably a little bit harder. I would guess it's very hard. I was always under the impression that the successful big time renters had enough reservations booked that they were able to do the book, cancel, re-book, upgrade process and retain the majority of their reservations at the 60 day window. They would start selling as soon as they had the reservations to get the big bucks for them and if they lost a few when it came down to the 60 day mark they were still able to cover what they sold and often got enough reservations back that they still had some left to sell.

Since the changes of last year I fully expected to see much higher prices on rentals and I haven't been seeing that. Maybe I'm not seeing it; are people getting higher prices? I've wondered if more people who rent are now renting at more of a break even point than in the past. Are the people who actually make a nice profit on their rentals are becoming fewer and fewer?

I don't think my prices have changed a lot. I have higher prices on some prime weeks but that's about it. I've got a pretty good idea of what people will pay. As I've said before, most of my rental business is with reservations made less than 60 days before check-in.

The booking and the cancel/re-book/upgrade was only part of it. Listing and maintaining listings on the various web sites, answering all manner of questions, collecting rental fees, and maintaining accounting records took more time than making reservations. I was making reservations for prime weeks ten, thirteen, and fourteen months before check-in. I knew which weeks I wanted and there would be availability because I was calling for ARP reservations thirteen and fourteen months to the day before check-in and at exactly 8 AM east coast time.

Now, it is about doing endless searches for reservations 60 days or less before check-in, hoping to find something with an upgrade that might rent. For any particular reservation now, I have forty-five days or less to complete the rental or I will cancel the reservation at the 15-day point and start looking again. Thank God for unlimited reservation transactions!

And I don't worry if I have some points left over at the end of the year. In December 2017, I had a few thousand points but the cost to roll them over exceeded their value so I let them expire.

I have 4,677,000 points for 2019 and right now, my balance is 175 points. I may rent some of those reservations at full price. I will cancel a lot of them to free up points for things I find inside the 60 day window. It is enormously time-consuming.
 
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