5 Things to Consider When Selling Your Austin Vacation Rental

If you’re considering selling your airbnb investment property, there are quite a few things you should consider.  Listing your Austin area vacation rental for sale is far more complex than listing your personal home for sale, and is entirely different than listing a long term rental for sale too.  You’re going to need to think about your market seasonality, existing bookings, furnishings and much more.  Here are five things to consider before selling your Austin area vacation rental investment property.

1. Timing the Sale
The most popular days for buyers to tour properties for sale and the most frequently occupied days for an airbnb both fall on the weekends!  Naturally, this creates a bit of a predicament.  If you want to sell your active short term rental you’ll want to ensure prospective buyers can actually get into the home to see it!  As you can imagine, most airbnb guests would not welcome this inconvenience.  Thus, you should likely block off your calendar for a few weeks following the date you list the vacation rental for sale.  I can already hear your anxiety, “Block the calendar!”, she says, “We can’t do that, we will lose bookings and revenue!” Yes, you may.  However, if your calendar is fully booked and you list your home for sale, you will sacrifice revenue on the sale. 

See, the thing is, when your home just sits on the market, buyers start to worry.  They don’t consider the fact that the only time for a prospective buyer to see your home was during turnover last Tuesday.  All they see is that your home has been on the market for 20+ days, and that will cost you far more than a few lost bookings.  The best thing to do when considering the timing of your airbnb sale is to compare the seasonality of the sales market with the seasonality for your short term rental. March is a great time to list your Austin property for sale, BUT this is SXSW season in the short-term game and obviously not the time to block off the calendar!  Identify a month where sacrificing a few stays won’t kill you, and median sales prices are historically high.

2. What Will Convey with Your Airbnb Sale
When listing your Austin area vacation rental you are selling real estate, but you are also selling a whole lot more!  You’re selling all the furnishings, the business, and the property itself.  Do you know what all is even in the house anymore?  Do you have a detailed inventory list?  Do you have personal items you don’t want to convey?  You need to get a full grasp on all of these things before you list the vacation home for sale.  What about your short term rental listing?  Do you plan to transfer this to a new owner?  Can you transfer this to a new owner?  Will you give a new owner all of your previously earned reviews, maid connections, contractor relationships? These are all questions you will want to ask yourself.  

3. Rental History and Performance
If you’re selling your vacation rental, you will most likely be advertising your property to savvy investors who will want to know what kind of ROI they can expect from your home.  Thus, you have to know your numbers!  Do you have a detailed profit and loss statement you can provide?  If you don’t, can you make one? You need to make it as easy as possible for an investor to see the income potential in your property.  Did you block the calendar for 2 months so Aunt Nancy could stay there last May?  You’ll want to make note of that fact, and show what revenue you could have brought in if Aunt Nancy wasn’t such a freeloader.  Did you not know about variable pricing until two months ago?  Make note of that too.  Show investors how with a few tweaks, your property could be a profit house!

4. Marketing Your STR Effectively
While in no way is simply listing your property on the MLS an effective marketing strategy for any real estate sale, it’s particularly ineffective when you are marketing the sale of an airbnb.  Your STR should be listed on the MLS, but it also needs to be marketed to those most likely to buy it- investors searching for a vacation rental investment opportunity.  There are plenty of platforms out there for just that!  These should be utilized, and networking with other local Austin airbnb owners and managers is also a great way to get the word out about your airbnb for sale.  Effective marketing for a vacation rental home includes advertising the property, the airbnb listing, the furnishings, and the revenue!  When you get the word out about all of these features to the right people in the right way, your vacation rental will sell quickly!


5. Choosing the Right Person to Sell Your Vacation Rental
Given that selling a vacation rental property is drastically different from selling a regular home, you need an experienced real estate agent who understands the process for selling your Austin airbnb.  A thorough, knowledgeable real estate agent in the STR space will ask you about many of the points above during your very first interaction.  They will know where and how to market your vacation rental, and they will have the technical experience to make sure all the details are appropriately addressed contractually.


If you’re considering selling your vacation rental in the greater Austin area, the E-Rae Realty team has the skills and experience to assist you with your sale. 

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