Book Smarts
Three new books offer tips on how to capitalize on your vacation properties.
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Reading is one of the most popular activities vacation-home owners engage in when inhabiting their second homes. While fiction feeds the soul, reading about how your home can make you money or how to flip homes for profit is a far more industrious endeavor. What follows is a rundown of three new books that may help you transform your mountain perch into a cash cow.Profit from Your Vacation Home DreamBy Christine Hrib Karpinski (Dearborn Trade Publishing, Chicago)
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This anecdotal book is an owner’s manual for vacation-home owners who want to earn rental income when they are not in residence. Author Christine Hrib Karpinski tells us that every vacation home has potential as a profitable rental. However, an owner has to accept that success hinges on viewing the endeavor as hands-on, as opposed to a passive enterprise, she claims. (Click image to enlarge)
An important part of maximizing profit, Karpinski writes, is to avoid the services of a professional management company. This means the owner must function as such. Karpinski shares her abundant experience in how to juggle daily, weekly and monthly renters and still maintain a personal life. Her "Karpinski formula" includes basics, such as gauging rents at nearby vacation rentals in order to establish a reasonable rent for a property.
The book is heavy on the management techniques she uses to operate her vacation rentals from a distance. She also discusses housecleaning, avoiding bad tenants, giving directions and making key transfers.
Although she lacks an academic perspective, Karpinski’s
anecdotal accounts (to which she wisely adds those of her friends) make the book
a must-read for any vacation-home owner who is interested in renting it out.
Handled properly, Karpinski claims, rentals can cover all of your
expenses—including your mortgage.
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