Commercial real estate has been my area of expertise for more than 40 years now, but if you have a spouse, a relative, or a friend who is a residential real estate agent, I have an idea that may now be helpful to them.
For people who own vacation rental homes, where they rent the home out for anywhere between one night up through several weeks at a time to someone, these homeowners have suddenly seen their income on these homes go from wherever it was at, to absolute zero right now. In addition, many of these people still have loans to pay on these homes right now, too, so they could become very squeezed financially very quickly. In addition to this, who knows when that rental income on these homes will return to its full, normal levels once again? Because even once we’re told that we can travel and intermingle with each other like normal once again, I’m expecting that it will take quite some time before everyone feels comfortable enough traveling and staying in other people’s homes once again, in knowing that there was another vacation family that just moved out of the home.
So whether it’s right now, or several months down the road, I have to believe that a certain percentage of these vacation homeowners will decide that now is the time to sell, and they’re going to need to list their homes with residential agents. In addition, it’s now become very easy to find who these homeowners are who are renting their homes out to travelers, as these homes are now posted right on the various vacation home rental websites. And, in addition to this, you can oftentimes contact these homeowners directly through these websites!
So granted, we don’t like seeing anyone hurting financially, but the impact of what’s now going on in our world is going to cause some people to sell real estate, and I have to believe that some vacation homeowners will definitely be falling into this category. In addition, when these homeowners sell, they will most likely be selling to buyers who will then be moving their families directly into these homes, so the issue of these homes not generating income will no longer be relevant.
With this in mind, residential agents can contact these homeowners directly, and I recommend first checking in with these owners to see how they’re doing. In addition, ask them how they see all of this playing out over the long run, and then ask them what their strategy is to deal with it.
This situation with vacation home rentals is quite unique, in that you don’t have full-time tenants living in these homes with leases in place, and people suddenly aren’t going to be staying in your home and paying you any rent, also, for the foreseeable future.
So be checking in with these homeowners, show them that you care, and be of service to them. Then in doing so, you’re helping to position yourself as the one agent they’ll want to sell through if and when the time finally comes for them to sell.