Im a new villa owner get me outta here
Posted: Wednesday, September 15, 2004
by bellesretreat
bellesretreat
My friend kept pestering me to do a business with him. Several ideas came and went but the one I thought I could realistically do whilst continuing my other full time job was to own property. We decided to go to a homes abroad show at the GMEX in
Not long after our return, my uncle died. My auntie visited and during a quiet moment of reflection she told us of how they had planned to buy a place in
"We had the money, we should have done it" My uncle didn't make retirement!
That convinced me. I was scared to do such a venture on our own but in July 2003 following what I considered a tonne of research, my family and I went to
We were shown round a number of "new builds" but settled on Tivoli Manor,
The sale was agreed and we returned home to wait for it to be built. This was the start of our headaches. The build was about 2 months behind schedule (about 8 months total)
Just after Christmas we started to have problems with the management company. They had had a disagreement and parted company. We were appointed new ones. In March 2004 we became the proud owners of our new villa Belles Retreat, named after my wife Hayley Belle and our daughters favourite Disney Character. All did not go smoothly though. The week before we went out, another fallout within the management company team, meant we had to do all the running round, connecting tv, telephone, snagging lists etc ourselves.
Now the hard part started. Marketing. People/friends who we thought, or in fact promised, to book through us somehow manage to “not need such a big house" and family who struggle to send a birthday card now want a free holiday.
Since March the management company have not provided a single full price booking. We now spend at least an hour a day responding to booking enquiries and being let down by people who say they’ll book and then put the holiday on hold for one reason or another. We spend a lot of time sending and delivering posters and leaflets advertising Belles Retreat.
We know people whose build has been over 6 months behind schedule. My friend was promised guaranteed rentals. Once he bought he found out that they are guaranteed at 55% of the correct price. Ive even heard of people going out to their own house to find it had been rented out to someone else without their knowledge or them getting paid for it.
The house has now gone up $80,000 so if you want to break even you have to either charge more per week than the competition or you have to sell more weeks. (Nobody is going to pay you more)
So can you put your own money towards funding your house with half the bookings the salesman tells you that you need? Can you sleep through worries of dollar/pound exchange and interest rate rises, let downs and now Hurricanes!!! Can you update your own website? Can you deliver thousands of flyers? If you can join the villa owners club.
But first remember. ALL salesmen/women want you to buy. They will tell you all the good points not the bad. Whatever you are told think worse case scenario. Get a good management company that you know gets you bookings. Treat it as a business from day one and you should do all right. After all I’ve said we are slowly getting bookings (through lots of hard work.) We now have a new management company. Our house has gone up in value and we are looking forward to retiring for 6 months of the year in one of the best vacation places in the world.
Dean Richardson www.bellesretreat.co.uk
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)Yes it was helpful bought a villa davenport orlando last year sounded a good idea at the time really strugglings with bookings our MC said they would get us bookings only got us 4 days is it better to get one that gets bookings do they exist irene
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