Who says you can't live in a beach or ski resort AND make a great living? You can... by managing vacation rental properties for the property owners.

The secret of success is making your vocation your vacation. - Mark Twain

Most properties (homes, condos, townhomes, villas) in resort areas like beaches and ski resorts are 2nd homes owned by over 6.4 million individuals. The majority of these people only use their property for personal use for under 30 days a year. For the remaining 335 days, most owners then rent their properties short-term (by the night or week) in order to produce income, often to cover the expensive mortgage they took out to buy their luxurious resort property.

SkyRun started as a 100 property operation in Keystone Resort, Colorado in 2002 and has a proven, 10 year track record of success in marketing, internet and back-office systems. We're now over 600 properties in 9 locations and would like to add your favorite vacation spot.

Why Choose SkyRun?

We are currently seeking highly qualified individuals to start SkyRun franchises. Any luxury vacation destination where there are vacation homes to rent is a possibility.

The highlights of SkyRun Vacation Rentals Franchise program are:

• SkyRun provides a hosted website that you simply load your properties into. The website has been optimized to send search engine traffic and renters to your site to get retail (direct from renter) bookings.
• SkyRun provides a back-office system to track all reservations, charge credit cards to your merchant account and do all owner accounting/statements. There is a full work order tracking system as well as cleaning and management reports.
• SkyRun provides an owner portal where your owners can track and make their reservations and view past statements and tax info.
• SkyRun provides a network of wholesalers (others that work to book your properties for you) an easy way to book your properties to help.
• Our Franchisee Portal provides online access to all SkyRun documents and information. Each franchisee also has their individual area of the portal to store your documents.
• SkyRun provides our expertise on how to improve your marketing to owners as well as guests. For example, google ranking as well as how to get listed on internet travel sites like Orbitz and Travelocity and Expedia and Travel Agents around the world.

Why Now?

The Opportunity

By providing services to these home owners (and to their guests) including renting their property and ensuring that it is well maintained and secure, property managers help owners earn more income. To perform this role, a vacation rental property manager typically gets between 30-45% of the rental income. Vacation rental property managers typically do not OWN the properties they rent; they simply rent and care for other people's property. In short, they generate income off of the investments of others, instead of having to risk investing in their own rental properties. And if you are already an owner, wouldn't it be nice to earn income off a property where someone else is responsible for the mortgage?

The Industry

Vacation rentals (short-term lodging in privately owned residences at vacation destinations) is one of the fastest growing segments of the $700 billion travel industry, generating $18 billion/year. Americans planned 328 million leisure trips this summer (up significantly from last summer) and a survey by Zonder shows that rentals are increasing, even as the economy slows. This is due to the comparatively lower cost of vacation rental holidays and the higher-income demographic of the beach or ski vacation guest!

The demographic of the 2nd homeowner is an attractive one to have as a customer base. These are people (maybe you) with the means to own a 2nd home; they value a high level of service and dependability and are willing to pay handsomely for it. However there are very few companies that property owners can confidently turn to to manage their vacation rental properties on their behalf.