Florida Guide > Accommodation
The Joys and Pain of Owning a Villa
That’s it, you’ve done it, you’ve been thinking about it for years and now the deed is actually done and you walk into your own little bit of America, your immediate thoughts are, is this villa up to the standard that I would like if I was renting it from someone, and so it starts.
Replace the settees, one of the beds needs a new mattress and another one needs replacing altogether, does it need decorating or intruder alarms fitting? Will it pass the inspection for our license and what do I do with the forms to get our ITIN? If you haven’t yet got a management company, who do you use, who can you trust? Will my villa rent out and what can I reasonably charge our guests?
These and many, many more are all question, feelings and desires that hit you when you finally make that purchase, but it is done and you set about advertising in both publications, on specialist sites and of course setting up your own web site. Nightly after you have finished work you sit at your computer reviewing your adverts, you tweak and re write and answer the many general and fewer specific enquiries that you get, people asking for discount off your published price but expecting to get first class accommodation with the best of everything included. Wireless broadband, free local and international phone calls, solar panel heating to the pool and spa installed at a cost of around $6000 so that guests do not have to pay for pool heat really destroys you because you have invested so much in providing a superb villa with all amenities for your guests, taxes to pay to both the County and the State, it really is hard work, but eventually, all of your hard work pays off, an enquiry changes into a booking and all of the long hours and money invested becomes worthwhile, the euphoria of someone seeing your villa from the many available, as the place where they would like to spend their holiday is a feeling that you cant describe.
You phone when they have settled in to make sure that they are comfortable and that they like the villa, and you look forward to their comments in your visitors book. Many will return over the years because they liked your villa so much. It may be the position, the amenities, the proximity to the parks, restaurants or airport, whatever the reason, each time that they contact you to book again you get that special feeling that only an owner knows and that makes owning a villa, despite all of the hard work that goes on behind the scenes, worthwhile.
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