Deciding whether or not to enroll your beautiful Ocean City, MD property in a vacation rental program is a decision that many property owners find themselves coming across at one point or another. Vacation rentals in Ocean City can be a terrific way to help cover some of your ownership expenses while building equity in your beach- home, condo or townhome. With that being said, just like anything else in our world, vacation rentals aren’t right for everyone… and that’s okay!
Many property owners in OCMD purchased a beach home with the idea of visiting the beach every weekend, or at least a few weeks out of the summer. Unfortunately, we find that many owners simply do not have the time to make it to the beach as much as they anticipated. It’s natural then that they might consider renting their property to help offset the costs.
With the 2024 presidential election just around the corner and an ever changing economy, we figured now would be a great time to show you the benefits of vacation rentals. Hopefully this helps you decide whether or not to enroll in a vacation rental program. While also showing you that we’re the best (and maybe just a little biased).
Benefits of Enrolling your OCMD property into a vacation rental program
Renting your current beach property can prove to be a very sound decision. Why?? Because you still get to enjoy it while also earning some extra money to help offset some of your ownership costs! As we all know all too well, owning property (especially at the beach) can be an expensive venture. Property taxes, mortgage payments, HOA/condo fees, homeowners’ insurance, utilities, and other costs of ownership can add up quickly. If you need some help covering some of those costs, giving up a few weeks over the summer (and even a few offseason weekends… like the weekend of Oceans Calling & Country Calling) can allow you to make a healthy amount of money!
Consider this, Ocean City has over 8 MILLION annual visitors. Our town is a very highly sought after beach destination because of our many great restaurants, bars, and wide array of family friendly activities! If you are beginning to consider investing in vacation rentals, or already have one and are looking to boost your rental income give this blog a read, or watch this YouTube video to learn about goal setting as a rental property owner!
A Brief Tip: Understand that there is a very large inventory of rental properties in OC. Doing sound research and learning how to get a step ahead of your competition can make an ENORMOUS DIFFERENCE!
Should You Invest in Vacation Rentals?
As we briefly touched on earlier in this blog, deciding on whether or not to invest in vacation rentals can be a difficult decision to make. If you want to learn about how to invest in vacation rentals at the beach, our friends at the Fritschle Barker Group at Keller Williams Realty of Delmarva wrote a blog discussing just that!
If you’re looking to buy a beach home and are considering vacation rentals visit their website and reach out!
We’ll summarize their blog quickly below.
There are a number of different “ownership situations” that OC property owners find themselves in. As we mentioned earlier, one of the most buyer-types is for ‘mostly personal use’. As times change, those owners find they can’t make it to the beach as much as they originally anticipated. Another common situation property owners is an ‘inherited property’ or property that was passed down from family members. These properties are fully paid off, and these owners find they would like to start earning a bit of passive income.
The next common situation we see owners in is that they are looking to build or add to their current real estate portfolio in order to build equity. From savvy investors to families whose financial situation recently changed, we see this ALL THE TIME.
Regardless of which type relates best to your situation, the result is still the same. You can begin earning some passive income and/or offsetting some of your ownership costs while still having the option to come to the beach and stay in your wonderful oceanfront condo whenever you would like! Call our team at Central Reservations today. We’ll customize a plan for your beach property to fit your needs today.
Before we wrap up this section of the blog, we want to mention one more thing. We often have consultations with soon to be, or current property owners who are looking to make a large amount of rental income and take home a big check every year. Unfortunately, this is rather uncommon. If you have the funds to purchase a stunning beach condo that has the potential to rent for 10s of thousands of dollars per week, this may be attainable. However, we know this is not a common situation to be in. Vacation rentals are not a way to “get rich quick.” They are a way to cover expenses, build equity, and start gaining financial stability while setting yourself up for success in the future.
How To Your Vacation Rental Started
If you’ve been reading this blog and thinking to yourself “vacation rentals sound like a great idea for me, but I don’t have the time to manage it myself,” contact us! Reaching out to your top, LOCAL vacation rental company is the first step towards making your beach housework for you. Give us a call at (410) 723-4111 or send us an email to info@centraloc.com. We’d be more than happy to help! We will help you identify some of the things you need to do to your beach property to get it “vacation rental ready.” If you want to get a leg up on your competition, you can start by making sure your beach home, condo, or townhome has some of the essentials for vacation rentals. Double check that all of your appliances are in working order, you have a quality coffee maker (yes, this may sound silly… we’ll fill you in later, but let’s just say this…. America really does run on coffee), your condo is CLEAN, and do some research! Make sure that you have realistic expectations and understand the nuances of investing in vacation rentals, and most importantly, start to get into the mindset that this is a business. Many rental property owners are attached to their beach condos, and we COMPLETELY understand that mindset. You do, however, have to understand that mistakes happen. There are going to be a few things that go wrong when people are vacationing in your condo. If you do your best to understand that mistakes happen, it is 99% of the time not negligent, and try to get in front of any issues that may occur, you are well on your way to vacation rental success.
Conclusion
If you are considering renting out your Oceanfront, Bayfront, Oceanblock, or Bayside non-water property to Ocean City, MD vacationers, give us a call or send us an email! There are a number of benefits to investing in vacation rentals. If you find yourself in one of the ownership situations that we mentioned in the second section of this blog, our totally unbiased opinion is that vacation rentals may be beneficial to you! We’ll leave you with this: If you’re interested in vacation rentals you should evaluate your goals & long-term plans, begin to understand where you are in the lifecycle of beach property ownership, do some critical thinking and research, then contact the top LOCAL vacation rental management company in your area… such as Central Reservations :). We hope you enjoyed this blog! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our amazing staff!
See you at the beach soon!
Central Reservations
6200 Coastal Hwy, Suite 100, Ocean City, MD, 21842
Phone: (410) 723-4111
Email: info@centraloc.com