Growing up I had the blessing to travel to a family owned cabin in Munds Park which is located just just outside of Flagstaff, Arizona. We would visit our cabin 5-7 times annually together as a family. We have very fond memories within the cabin so when my parents made a decision to sell it about 6 years ago I immediately began looking to purchase a cabin of my very own. I wished to provide the children with the same opportunity to make memories with a family cabin after i had. We started seeking a cabin or land to build a cabin June 2006. We quickly found some land found in Pinetop-lakeside Arizona that is based in the white mountains and approximately 3 hours from the Phoenix area. It was a modest 8,000 sq . ft . lot but we loved how close it was to the movie theater, restaurants, ski resort, lakes, and much more. We decided against owning a site built home and placed a new manufactured home on the lot which we were capable of complete by November 2006. We figured we might make use of the cabin a couple of years and could market it for a profit at some point (yes, this has been throughout the the property market boom so you can imagine simply how much underwater I am). I can’t describe the thrill there was during our first journey with all the children to look our completely new cabin. We were treated to a great deal of fun our first time together the youngsters and ourselves couldn’t wait to come back. We took the 3 hr journey to the cabin as many weekends as possible. After our newbie of ownership as well as the realization we couldn’t sell the cabin, much less give it away, there was a challenge on our hands. We had the ability to scrape together enough money to pay for cash with the cabin. What we didn’t realize is just how expensive a cabin with out mortgage would remain. Whether a cabin is paid off or otherwise you still have to pay for property tax, property insurance, basic utilities, frozen pipes, re-staining the porch and many other expenses. We didn’t have need to be broke on a cabin we only visited Five times annually therefore we quickly jumped on the net to find a method to rent our cabin. This is where we met VRBO often known as Vacation Rentals By Owner. What really sold us about this vacation rental website was the simple fact we had several other friends who swore by it. We paid our initial $299 yearly fee and off i was praying to rent our cabin. Over the years and months we certainly have had great success using VRBO therefore we are capable of pull in roughly $8,000-10,000 per year. Some may think how wonderful it could be to bring in this type of money. We thought the same thing until we realized there seemed to be nothing remaining at the conclusion of the entire year. Don’t get me wrong, We’re very grateful to have the income given that it helps us break even annually rather then being out of pocket. It is amazing how expensive it turned out to rent our cabin. If you consider about it though, the greater you rent the cabin the greater utilities costs plus the more deterioration occurs. Hiding within the shadows were all additional negative aspects of renting our cabin that we soon came across and still have never been able to chase away. After owning our cabin since 2006 we have ultimately come to a conclusion we would prefer to be renters of any vacation rental property as opposed to owners. I’m sure lots of you have a different view, which I want to hear, nevertheless for our little growing family of 6 it is simply too much to deal with. Mentioned are some pros and cons of being a vacation rental property owner we’ve experienced. Purchasing real estate is never something we ought to do impulsively so don’t hurry, study your choices, review your finances and interview anyone you could find regarding their experience. What follows is a quick pros and cons set of buying a vacation rental property.

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