Not long ago, I wrote an article about owning a vacation rental and what to consider before making the plunge Like every decision, there are pros and cons, and it also depends on an individual’s temperament, comfort with risk and many other factors.
I asked a few dozen villa owners who were listed at an Orlando Florida villas rental listing site why they had chosen villa ownership and what cautions or advice they would offer somebody considering a Florida vacation rental.
What struck me, however, was how most of the vacation rental owners I interviewed offered more comments on why they chose Florida as a location, than why they chose to be a villa owner.
In other words, the location more than the occupation inspired villa ownership, and that location is Orlando, Florida. Considering the battering Florida had recently taken by one hurricane after another, this struck me as kind of odd. So I picked up the phone and called Stewart Granville, owner of the listing site.
“It’s late Fall and I’m sitting out here in my shorts. Do I need another reason?” he asked. “How are you doing up there?”
“Uh…let me just go get a sweater,” was all I could respond.
To give you some idea of how important it for a vacation rental property owner to fall in love with the location, here are just two samples of what some villa owners told me: