I was impressed with this book because most rental managers don't even discuss insurance or know anything about it. Yet, this book devotes several pages on this topic. So, If you got a vacation rental, or thinking about it like me, your common garden variety homeowners policy won't do. You got to pay twice or more on the premium for a vacation home.

We have just started to rent our vacation property by owner after having it done by a management company. This book has been extremely helpful in making the transition.

For a person like me who is going to start in the Vacation Rental Business, this book was very helpful and informative. For someone who has experience in the business maybe will find it too elementary or too basic. For me it was a good start.

I own 5 rental properties, 2 are vacation rentals. I bought this book with pretty high expectations. Well, even though I've been doing this for 15 years, Christine still had some new advice to share. I thought her formula was great for some areas, but in Colorado Ski country it just doesn't work.

I love how she does give a couple different points of view pertaining to financing your vacation home.

I would also preferred more depth, that a chapter on properties outside the US, and buy multiple properties. But as some reviewers have stated, it is an excellent primer.

I do think that her book on booking rentals, The Vacation Rental Organizer is a very useful organizer for the money. I intend to purchase one each year.

I have to laugh at the previous two reviews, obviously written by the same person, an admitted student with a bone to pick with the author. Christine is the most well-known expert in the very small field of vacation rental consultants. She literally "wrote the book" to walk potential investors, vacationers, and home owners into successfully taking advantage of the blossoming vacation rental market.

This student disagrees with Christine's recommendations that owners not rent to those under 25 years old, then proceeds to show a perfect example of why owners shouldn't. He attempts to trash her reputation, rather than someone's rental property. I'm a rental owner and have the same rule, based on personal experience and the many experiences of friends and acquaintances. I imagine this student has stayed in 1 or 2 rentals and as a result is now an "expert"...much like the hotel commercials we all laugh at.

As the student says, some of the information in Christine's books is on the Internet, as is information from every book ever written. However, this new version of her "How to Rent Vacation Properties by Owner" contains everything anyone needs to know to look for, purchase, furnish, and rent a vacation home. Some of the information is common sense but much is 'insider information' from her many years as a seminar leader, training thousands of owners and being a 'by owner' property manager herself.

Take the previous reviews for what they are, feeble attempts to get even with someone that disagrees with him. If you want to learn about this industry and how to rent 'by owner' get this book and read it cover to cover and decide for yourself how valuable it really is.

I thought the title of the book was exactly what I was looking for. I had a property to rent and thought about making it a vacation rental. So, I bought the book thinking it would help point out some not-so-obvious issues about renting a vacation property. But after reading it, I was disappointed with the lack of any real advice or tips. There are a A LOT of words, but they seem to be mostly filler with only very limited and basic useful information. I would not recommend this book to anyone interested in running a real business.

I purchased this book with the intention of gaining a working knowledge of vacation rentals to start a small vacation rental project in Baja California, in Mexico. This guide was not particularly helpful at all, providing only rudimentary information that was already somewhat obvious. It also relies on some dangerous business practices, fundamentally on speculating on the property that you are going to buy and trying to make significant profit that way. It seems to be very limited and unprofessional, almost hokey, in its view of vacation rentals.

I was personally offended as a student in that it explicitly recommends discriminating against students or anyone under 25 as customers.

Dear Mister Blanchard,

The previous edition of this book, which was published before HomeAway existed, had all of the same websites mentioned as this newer edition.

Furthermore, I have been doing seminars for nearly 10 years. You can speak with many of the thousands of owners who had attended seminars prior to the first edition being published and they will tell you that I always made the same recommendations.

Yes I do work for HomeAway, and I have never been shy to disclose of my position within the company. And yes I fully disclose that in the book as well.

I was hired by HomeAway after my book was published (and on the bestseller's list) for my industry expertise, not for marketing as you imply. I am the Director of the Owner Community.

I refuse to change my hat just because I now work for the company.

Christine Karpinski

After reading the reviews I thought this would be a useful book. It certainly has lots of information in it, that you can find for free on the internet. I certainly did not learn anything I already did not know.

Although that was annoying it was not as infuriating as finding out that the author works for a company called HomeAway Inc. She fully disclosed the fact that she worked for them, which is fine, but she must have forgotten that almost all of the portal sites she mentioned are owned by HomeAway Inc, a small little fact that must have slipped her mind when her company was lining her pocketbook. In one passage on page 142 she recommends that you sign up for all 4 of the portal sites she `recommends' and only puts and asterisk by HomeAway, failing to state that HomeAway owns the other 3 that she 'recommends' you sign up for. Nice Christine, thanks for the full disclosure. After she recommends you don't go with a rental management company (in Chapter 9 she has a personal crusade against property management companies) because they take too much money, she turns around and `recommends' sending $1500 to her parent company. Wow, the hypocrisy!!! She certainly has chutzpah.

She peppers the books with 'recommendations' of websites that are either owned or affiliated with the company that employs her. I would recommend buying a book on how to rent vacation homes from someone who is not in the pocket of a company whose job it is to take a percentage of your vacation rental income. Maybe someone with at least some degree of ethics and objectivity.

For full disclosure's sake, I am not affiliated with any rental management company or any company that directly or indirectly competes with Home Away Inc. In fact, I am not even in the real estate industry in any capacity. It is just very aggravating to find out that I spent $20 to get a 300 page advertisement for HomeAway Inc.

It turns out that Mrs. Karpinski is just an arm of the HomeAway Inc marketing machine. I do not think that the author is the `expert' that she claims to be, just a huckster trying to sell the wares of HomeAway Inc. I hope in her next edition she does the ethical thing and decides to fully disclose her relationship with what she is trying to sell you on.

If you think I am just some crazy loon who likes to rant, just do a little internet research and you will quickly find out that HomeAway Inc owns most, if not all of the `recommendations' by the author.

Now in a substantially expanded and newly updated second edition, "How To Rent Vacation Properties By Owner" continues to be the essential 'how to' manual for every aspect of buying, managing, furnishing, maintaining, advertising, and renting out a vacation rental investment. An indispensable instruction guide for anyone considering renting out their vacation property anywhere in the world, this new edition of "How To Rent Vacation Properties By Owner" features more than $800 in money-saving coupons. There are complete and 'user friendly' information provided that will help the reader to choose the best property for them; select from among the various financing options available; identify (and avoid) problematic renters; efficiently organize the paperwork, finances, and maintenance for a rental; even maintaining a vacation rental property from a distance. Of special note is the section devoted to dealing with 'post-Katrina' insurance issues. Whether you are renting a beach-side condo in Southern California, a fishing-cabin in the Adirondacks, or a getaway ranch in Montana, "How To Rent Vacation Properties By Owner" will prove a financially invaluable, operationally indispensable, soundly reliable, informed and informative reference that should be considered mandatory reading for anyone renting out a vacation property of any kind, anywhere in the country.

An excellent book full of practical advice. We'll keep it on hand as a reference. Example: don't buy a $3,600 sofa, buy a $1,200 sofa and replace it twice. This book gave us confidence to take the plunge and buy a beach house.

How To Rent Vacations Properties By Owner by Christine Hrib Karpinski is the Bible of how to purchase, advertise, and own vacation rental properties. It has complete details and how-to's for the potential buyer and manager and advertiser of these properties around the world. This is thruly the Complete Guide to Buy, Manage, Furnish, Rent, Maintain , and Advertise your vacation rental investment. If you think you would enjoy being a landlord or manager of rentals, this is the place to research and to learn all the ins and outs of purchasing and renting special and unique properties in almost any location you can think of. Excellent compendium and easy to read and find what you are looking for.

Our copy of this book is dog-eared. We used it heavily when first getting into vacation rentals at Mt. Rainier National Park. There's enough breadth and depth to the topics to get you thinking through the various aspects of VR ownership.
It was particularly helpful I think, in setting up our policies and terms and conditions we'd present to our customers, in managing the reservation process, and in pricing and stocking our accommodations.
I think this book is money well spent for folks entering the VR business.

This book is a quick read and covers everything you need to know to buy and rent a vacation investment property. It has been a life saver for me.

The information in this book answered just about every question we thought of and many points we didn't. Great ideas to make the most of your investment with practical ideas for what is important and what isn't.

This is a great book detailing how to rent vacation properties. If you like this, uou might also enjoy, "World Ventures, Mike Azcue".