Our family has been renting our home out in Diamond Beach, NJ for almost 30 years…perhaps like many of you. We manage the same logistics; realtors, rentals, cleaning services, keys, tenants, trash, etc…. As a small private property manager for the past 20 years, I was able to help my family by strategically improving our property, the way we market it and secure summer rentals, and increasing our
rent by over 25%. While all of this sounds great on paper, my Mom then asked the million dollar question: "Who is going to handle all of the rentals every week?"
Like many vacation homeowners, my family lives a considerable distance away, and we all know never to go near the Parkway on a summer Saturday morning! So we’ve become complacent; mailing keys or lockbox codes to strangers, letting themselves in, and crossing our fingers that we don’t get a call with any problems during their stay. The cleaning service will call us if there’s any major damage….right? Even if you’re not beleaguered with problems or terrible tenants, you might not be renting as many weeks as you could be, for as high of a rent as your property is worth. Lots of work has gone into the proper preparation, strategic marketing, and communication with potential tenants before, during and after they rent. Some folks say, ”Anyone can put a real estate listing online, my son works with computers, he’ll take care of it for me!” What’s not being considered is the dozens of hours of market research and online image creation, constant inquiries on your phone and computer that need to be responded to immediately, all of this happeneing over the course of many off-season months! Trust me, your son would not appreciate the extra workload! After experiencing such great success, I decided to take my hosting services to the next level when I realized there’s a missing link in everyone’s rental process. Whether you use a realtor or just rely on repeat renters….is anyone at your property during their check-in and check-out? This service provides peace of mind to both incoming tenants as well as to owners. Someone who will greet them upon arrival, review all of the important bells and whistles of your property, and handle any issues from the previous guest. Some owners are very hands-on and we welcome that; it’s a great partnership experience to work with an involved property owner. We all only have so many hours in the day to spare, and outsourcing some of the basics to a local resource makes good business sense. Other owners may be too far away and overwhelmed with a busy schedule to make the trip every week to inspect the property. In these cases, The Girl Next Door provides professional Hosting services on-site, and handles all of the logistics. For folks who don’t have the time or inclination to work year-round or even seasonally on marketing their property or communicating with dozens of guests, we can handle everything for you; just sit back and watch the rent roll in. The nice thing about being a small Hosting company in the neighorhood is that we can really be all things to all people; you decide how involved you want to be. Whatever your needs or wants are for your return on investment of your second home, we can all agree on one common denominator: on-site eyes and ears at your property are priceless.
