The curse of condo rentals

All the problems we experienced as we arrived to our vacation deserve a full explanation for those readers who are not familiar with them. 

During the last segment of my career, I got involved with vacation rentals (like Airbnb or VRBO), in which there’s at least a rental company, a homeowner and a guest, and sometimes even more parties involved. 

Unlike some marriage, or more appropriately “ménage à trois”, this union isn’t made in Heaven, but rather in some sort of murky Hell, in which expectations run sky-high, but the reality remains close to the ground if not subterranean. 

Let me explain: The guest or vacationer expects seamless perfection. After all these are their hard-earned vacations, right? Their expectations, even if they are going beyond the implied promises, should be fully satisfied, just like in any decent fairy tale.

For the property management company, what’s important is that the home is rented as much as possible, with as least hassles involved and that it leaves a hefty profit margin. Then, there’s the homeowner who typically began by falling in love with the area, before emotionally purchasing that second-home, and after seeing bills of all kinds piling up, reluctantly decided to place it into a rental pool. 

From that point forward, several things simultaneously happen: The rental revenue wasn’t as high as promised, they were always unforeseen expenses, the property manager was putting pressure on the second-home owner to maintain keep up the home so it would be super easy to rent, and worst of all, there was a lot of wear and tear, theft and other bad things that become a recurring reality. 

The homeowners never realized that they had entering the hospitality business and that their beloved property became an object subject to wear and tear or even frequently disrespected. In summary, these opposing expectations were conspiring to make that triangular relationship a dysfunctional nightmare. 

From a practical standpoint, rental homes are chronically dirty because good housekeeping is expensive, yet housekeepers aren’t paid nearly enough for their work and property managers will take any possible shortcut (like not hiring enough inspectors to check the units, train their personnel sufficiently) in order to increase their bottom line. 

The visitor is squeezed in between these two opposite forces and must fight like hell in order to get their due. In the process, the property manager blames its contractors (those who clean and maintain the rental home), as well as the homeowner, in an effort to dodge the criticisms. 

Not a good situation! Now you can appreciate that bad surprises happen when you rent a home, and they’re almost always more the rule than the exception!