47 Pros & Cons Of Starting A Vacation Rentals (2024)

Ability to start your business from home

It's not necessary to have a physical storefront or office space to get your business started. You can do everything from the comfort of your own home, at least in the beginning!

Little startup costs required

The cost to start a vacation rentals costs significantly less money than most businesses, ranging anywhere from 62 to 35,615.

Rewarding work

Starting a vacation rentals can be really rewarding work. After all, you are solving an immediate issue for your customer and you're working on something you truly care about.

No overhead costs

To get your vacation rentals started, there are no costs associated with overhead, storage, packaging, etc. This will save you a lot of time and money!

High customer retention rates

Once a customer invests in your product, they've invested their time and energy to utilize your product/service which is highly valuable to them. Typically, your product or service becomes indispensable to your customer.

High margins

The gross margins for your vacation rentals are typically around 80%, which is considerably high and allows you to grow your business and manage costs easily.

Quick build time

The average time it takes to build your product is quick - typically around 2 months. This will allow you to bring your product to market faster.

Easy to encourage "impulse buy"

In the vacation rentals, you have a much higher chance of encouraging your customers to buy on impulse - you can easily alter the price, placement, packaging, and promotional value to influence the decision of your buyer.

Pick & choose the clients you work with

Vacation Rentalses have the ability to choose the clients they work with. You have the freedom to work with only a few loyal clients or with hundreds of clients!

Control of workload

With starting a vacation rentals, you have the unique ability to choose how little or how much you want to work. You also have the freedom to decide which projects you want to work on, and can turn down the ones that do not interest you.

Gain exposure and experience

This career allows you to gain experience working for multiple different businesses - which will benefit your resume and also keep things interesting for you!

Daily physical activity

Vacation Rentals's typically involve a much greater degree of movement than other lines of work. Most days, you will spend your day walking, running errands for your business, and performing a multitude of tasks. This can have a positive impact on energy levels and your overall health.

You are your own boss!

With starting a vacation rentals, you are the one to make decisions for almost all of the operations. Calling the shots can be empowering and liberating!

Local Community

One of the best parts of starting a vacation rentals is that you can develop a local following by selling your products at craft shows, farmers' markets, or even local storefront businesses! This gives you access to additional revenue streams and loyal customers.

Higher likelihood of getting referrals

This business is all about referrals, which can be a a very impactful way to attract and retain customers. It's critical that you have a great referral program in place that incentivizes your customers to tell their friends about your product.

Location is everything!

When operating a physical storefront, the location often speaks for itself and serves as it's very own marketing tool! It's important to choose a location in a high traffic area so you can spark curiosity and get people through your door!

Face to face interaction

If you are the type of individual that thrives on human interaction, then this is the business for you! With a vacation rentals, you will be hands-on with customers and or employees every day.

You can sell your product in various places!

There are various different markets to sell your product, which will help you reach different audiences and revenue streams.

App store allows you to reach a wide audience

If your app is listed in the app store, you are easily accessible to users that frequently visit the app store. App store listings also show as separate entries on Google’s search rankings, which allows for more users to see your business!

Simple business model

A vacation rentals has the advantage of a simple business model, which makes launching and building the business more seamless.

Minimal experience required

Starting A Vacation Rentals requires little experience and no specific certifications or qualifications. To be successful, you need hard work, determination and the desire to achieve greatness!

Control your own destiny

Starting A Vacation Rentals allows you to control every aspect of your life and make your own dreams come true every day.

You get to do something you truly love

With starting a vacation rentals, you get to put your energy into something you are truly passionate about! You'll find yourself devoting as much time and energy as possible into the business to make it successful.

You can decide who you work with

Gone are the days of working in a toxic work environment with employees that you may not vibe with. As a small business owner, you get to decide who you work and surround yourself with.

Travel Opportunitites

There are many travel opportunities that come with starting a vacation rentals You will need to travel a lot to see and experience some of the destinations you are selling.

You can work from anywhere!

Not only can you start your vacation rentals from home, you can also run your business from anywhere in the world. This is the entrepreneur dream.

Easy to Learn The Business

When starting your vacation rentals, there is a ton of information readily available to you online (Facebook groups, Youtube videos, Starter Story etc). This will help you get the business started and answer any questions, doubts or concerns you may have.

Never a dull moment

With starting a vacation rentals, there is truly never a dull moment. Your job offers a lot of variety and allows you to meet interesting people from all walks of life.

You establish yourself as an expert

With starting a vacation rentals, you establish yourself as an expert in your niche, which builds your credibility. In return, customers are more likely to trust you and refer you to other friends and family.

Various different ways to make money

With starting a vacation rentals, there is not just one business model to choose from. This field is amazing in that there are various different ways to make money. Although this may complicate things, it's great to have different options and sources of revenue.

Can build solid foundation of clients

It's unlikely you will have one-off customers as a vacation rentals. Typically, you have a solid foundation of clients that use your product and services regularly.

Results and revenue happen quickly!

Unlike other businesses, it can be relatively quick to start seeing results and revenue. As long as you follow all the steps to validate your idea before launch, you are likely to see quick results and ROI.

Crowded Space

Competition is high when it comes to your vacation rentals, so it's important that you spend a good amount of time analyzing the market and understanding where the demand lies.

Work can be inconsistent

As a vacation rentals, the amount of work assigned to you and schedule tends to be more inconsistent, which may make your income less stable. It's important to set boundaries and budget accordingly based on the amount of work you plan to have.

Isolation

Often times, as a vacation rentals, you typically work alone and do not have much face-to-face interaction with other team members.

No safety net

Typically, as a vacation rentals, you do not receive a consistent pay-check and instead earn money based on your transactions each month. During the slow periods, you typically take away less since the job is based on commission. It's important to budget accordingly for the slow times.

Niche Market

A niche business is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it can be the key to your success. However, it can be more challenging and time consuming to find the perfect niche market and target audience.

You may need to charge sales tax

If you are selling your products in various states, you may be required to charge sales tax. Although this may not impact your financials specifically, it can be a headache to create a process and procedure for this. To learn more about sales tax, check out this article

Work can be repetitive

You may find creating the same product over and over repetitive and tiresome. One way of avoiding this is to diversify product lines and revenue streams - this will keep things interesting!

Churn

In this business, customers can cancel their membership or subscription for your services - which can make revenue forecasting challenging and unpredictable. It's important to focus on your churn rates and trends so that you can prevent this as much as possible.

Time commitment

With starting a vacation rentals, all responsibilities and decisions are in your hands. Although this is not necessarily a negative thing, work life can take over at times. This can place a strain on friends and family and add to the pressure of launching a new business.

Impatient customers

You may offer an engaging user experience for your customer, but customers expect a lot and may be impatient if they aren't pleased with your product or service.

Work is not always glamorous

With starting a vacation rentals, you may need to get your hands a little dirty. Although it may seem glamorous from the outside to start this business, the work can require a lot of physical activity and repetition.

Answering Phones

The vacation rentals is still considered a traditional business, which means answering phones is a big part of the job. If you or your team miss phone calls, you could be missing out on potential revenue opportunities. If you are unable to attend to your phone throughout the day, it would be in your best interest to hire a call center or an employee dedicated to this.

You'll spend a lot of time in the car

Many vacation rentals offer their services outside of their office or home, which means you'll be spending quite a bit of time behind the wheel. You will also need to consider traffic and delays, which can be time consuming and take each job longer than expected.

Recession-Impacted Industry

When the economy is down, vacation rentals's are one of the first things to be cut.

More challenging to earn passive income

It can be more of a challenge to make passive income in this business. Often times, the amount of revenue you bring in is limited by the amount of time you have in the day.