Consumption and Real Estate
How can I check if a vacation rental from vrbo.com is legit?
Question : How can I check if a vacation rental from vrbo.com is legit?
I’m thinking of renting a vacation home in Kissimmee, FL. It requires a $ 300 deposit and full payment 60 days before arrival. Is this standard policy? I’ve seen other rentals say the same thing but full payment 2 months before arrival seems kinda sketchy. It could be that I’m just not familiar with how vacation homes are handled. Should I be concerned? This is the home: http://www.villaemerald.com/1.html
Is there a way for me to check with the Better Business Bureau? How are rental homes handled as a business? What would I even look up? Please help.
Obviousman, thank you for your response. Did you pay the full rent about before you arrived at the vacation home?
kissimmee vacation homes
Best answer:
Answer by Obviousman
As the name implies, vrbo is by “owners”. These aren’t large corporations, and may not be incorporated at all. It’s just homeowners renting out their vacation home, many times because the place is very expensive and they need a break.
These policies are pretty standard at vrbo.com. Owners cannot afford for people to flake out. Hotels can usually be more liberal with cancellation policies because they can usually rent out rooms if someone cancels. But this is not the case with a vrbo. It’s a smaller market, and they have to protect themselves.
I have used vrbo.com to rent a vacation home for a week. The experience was very good overall. It was much cheaper than a hotel, and we had a great location.
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#2 written by twincreektaz 1 year ago
I’d like to mount a campaign to encourage people not to go anywhere. Travel has become so expensive and unpleasant that it’s hard to understand why people don’t stay home.
Why are we crowding our highways and airports to get someplace else? Newspapers and magazines are filled with ads trying to get us to travel. They want us to go somewhere – anywhere but home - Comment Feed for this Post
I am the owner of a vacation rental in Blue Ridge, GA (from FL though)! I do not advertise on VRBO but I do advertise on their sister site homeaway.com (I find that much more user friendly as it has a thumbnail photo).
The way I handle my rental is that I ask for a $ 250 security deposit to hold the reservation. I then ask for payment in full 30 days prior to their arrival. The reason for this is that if the guest decides to cancel for whatever reason, it gives me 30 days to find someone else. I have seen quite a few that ask for 60 days although I feel that 30 days out is sufficient.
If you want to try to cross reference the owner that they do indeed own the property, you could check the local property appraisers site. Kissimmee,. FL is Osceola County:
http://www.property-appraiser.org/
On the left side of their home page, click on “record search”
you will then need to “agree” that you understand their info make not be 100% accurate (standard thing),
You can then enter either the homeowner name or the address and that’s it. You should be able to at least make sure the person you are dealing with does in fact own the property.
Good Luck and enjoy Florida!