How can I successfully rent out my holiday home?

To rent or not to rent?

Your (second) home on Bonaire is your own little piece of paradise in a tropical location. Here you can escape from the daily worries, or just enjoy the warm weather when it is winter time at home.

However, we can think of several reasons why you would want to rent out your holiday home to guests: Maybe because of the distance you don’t use it as often as you would like and you want to avoid vacancy. Or perhaps you want to compensate the costs by means of the expected rental income. And some owners just want to share their holiday home – for a fee – with others, for example with friends or acquaintances.

A manager or do it yourself?

Once you have made the decision to rent out, the question will be raised whether to let the rental run through a professional property and rental manager or to keep it in your own hands. In both cases, you will have to familiarize yourself with the long term and holiday rental market on Bonaire.

This blog post, with various professional tips from Sunwise Bonaire, shows you how much fun renting out to guests can be and what you should pay attention to once you have made that decision!

Set a goal

Just like with a regular company – a rental property as an investment is actually a company – it is very important to set clear goals, so:

What do you want to achieve with the rental of your holiday home?

Undoubtedly, the answer will be something like: “Finding guests who will pay to stay in my house.”

Make a calculation

A well-considered calculation helps you achieve this goal:
For what periods of the year do I make my house available for rent?
– Decide how many and which weeks per year you want to use the house yourself and in which period you want to rent the holiday home. This is important because the different seasons on Bonaire show different occupancy rates and yields.
What is the break-even point, when does the rental pay off?
– As soon as the total investment – not only the purchase price of the house, but also the necessary inventory and / or possible maintenance – is known, with certain assumptions, where it is important not to be unrealistically optimistic, an exploitation and return calculation can be made.

Who to hire for the rental?

Once the answers to the above questions have been completed satisfactorily, it becomes important to consider who you want to involve in the rental process. After all, achieving a successful exploitation is very labor-intensive and requires a lot of effort. Not to mention the distance between the residence of many homeowners on Bonaire and their rental accommodation.
Some owners take care of the rental of their holiday home themselves, despite these many tasks and, usually, that distance. Others prefer to use a professional, local property and rental manager like Sunwise Bonaire.

Manage and rent the investment yourself…

We think that you could consider renting and managing the real estate yourself, when you

• want to be in direct contact with the tenants / guests
• want to save money by avoiding a professional manager’s commission
• want to decide for yourself who will rent your holiday home on Bonaire, and in which period

Let the investment be managed and rented by a professional…

Professional property and rental managers take over the entire marketing, management and rental against a commission. Hire a (local) manager, when

• you don’t have the time or the desire to rent out yourself (including marketing) and manage your real estate
• it doesn’t really matter who will have a vacation in your home, as long as it happens nicely, neatly and quietly
• you don’t live nearby, to take care of the guests

Finding the right partner

Through conversations with other property owners on the island, you will be able to find suitable partners for the rental, management and maintenance of your holiday villa or apartment. Ask these people how are they renting out their house and which service providers (such as caretakers, cleaners and maintenance people) they make use of.

Professional managers on Bonaire can take of all aspects of the management and rental for you. The rates vary, depending on the package of work, between 10% and 50% of the rental price, the first (10%) usually being the less labor-intensive long-term rental and the latter (50%) all rental costs (such as cleaning, booking costs, minor maintenance, et cetera) taken on by the manager.

Professional management by Sunwise

For what Sunwise Bonaire can do specifically for you as a professional property manager, we would like to refer to the page on this website where we list our services for homeowners. You can request our white paper with information about what we can do for homeowners on Bonaire here, directly from that page.

Sunwise Bonaire, exclusive and transparent management!