Why I believe renting vacation homes by owner has hit CRITICAL MASS. 

Excerpts from my “Conversations on a ski lift in the White Mountains of Northern Arizona.”  No – that isn’t me who lost his pants on the ski lift recently….Thank goodness!  On second thought maybe we could have got some good press for the site!

Getting right to the point – I am on a ski lift in Northern Arizona.  Skiing in Northern Arizona is fantastic because I am a admittedly a “cold” wimp.  I hop onto the lift with my snowboard attached and get paired up with a ski instructor from Phoenix Arizona.  We both comment on how fantastic the 54 degree sunny weather is with a 75 inch base of great snow!

After a few minutes we talk about skiing, scuba diving and travel.  Out of the clear blue – he says to me (owner of a fledgling start up vacation rental website) “Hey you should check out a website called VRBO!”  I say ”really?”  He says “Yeah we rented a great condo in Cozumel, Mexico for $600 a week.  It was much better than a hotel and we saved money eating in!”  At first I am like – “WOW stick a dagger in my heart dude!”  I am far away from the day to day operations of Furnished Homes and vacation rentaling duties, I hop on a ski lift and the guy next to me wants to talk to me about how great it is to find vacation rentals by owner and save money on accommodations around the world.  Go figure!

Of course, I am a bit jealous of the 100,000 plus listings of some of the beheamoth vacation rental websites.  However, what was amazing to me is that people really, really like renting vacation homes and condos by owner.  When a person out of the blue mentions a product or service they would recommend to a stranger then I believe that product or service, in this case vacation rentals by owner, has hit CRITICAL MASS or is certainly moving towards it.  Of course, I took advantage of my captive audience on the lift and put my plug in for the Furnished Homes website – hey, if we’re talking about vacation home rentals then I am going to “POP” if I do not tell him about my site.

I have overheard conversations at sporting events, board meetings and various other venues about how great vacation rentals are and if I should be traveling or vacationing soon I need to contact owners direct and rent a home!  Now I know what it feels like – “Your preaching to the choir my friend!”

Now if I could just over hear someone talking about the Furnished Homes website – We’ll keep plugging away…by the way we are almost ready to roll out some great site enhancements soon!