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Preparing Your Home For Vacation Rentals

Your home is likely already furnished and decorated, but you’ll have to find a balance between personal convenience and guest comfort if you begin renting it to guests.

First, remove any irreplaceable or valuable items. You can create an owner’s lockable closet in your home for storing personal items and extra supplies. The rest of your home should be free of personal effects and clutter.

In addition to removing and locking away personal items, it’s also important to add the items that travelers expect to find in a Visit Winter Park Lodging vacation rental home.

The Kitchen

Many travelers choose to stay in a vacation rental because of the kitchen. A home with a full kitchen gives families yet another place to gather and allows them to save money by not having to eat every meal at a restaurant. However, in order to boast a fully-equipped kitchen at your vacation rental home, you need to at least provide the essentials listed on our basic good list.

The Living Area

Your living area should have comfortable seating for the number of people that your nightly rental sleeps. You should also provide a TV large enough for guests to watch from across the room (32” or larger) with basic cable, we also recommend upgrading your cable package to include a movie channel like HBO, ESPN and the Weather Channel, and a DVD player. A couple decks of cards and a board game or two for rainy days is a nice idea as well.

The Bedrooms

All vacation rental homes should have quality bedding. We supply the home with high quality linens so you don’t have to worry about this. You do need two quality duvets per bed, and 2 pillows per guests. Also consider supplying an alarm clock, charging station and reading lamp in each bedroom.

The Bathrooms

Renters expect the bathrooms to be exceptionally clean free of hair, missed hair can lead to bad reviews.  We supply our homes with high quality bath towels. 

Overall Home

In preparing your home for vacation rentals you should have it deep cleaned prior to your first rental. Please call Visit Winter Park Lodging if you would like us to pre-clean your home. We will need at least a 72-hour notice. Also, create a list of tips/instructions specific to your home including an Internet password.

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Preparing your home for vacation rentals

Basic goods list

Emergency

  • First-aid emergency kit
  • Optional: flashlight, fire extinguisher (highly recommended)

Entertainment

  • Internet
  • Cable or satellite television

Bedrooms

  • Mattress cover/pad
  • Twenty hangers per closet
  • Fans (one per bedroom)
  • vacuum (if carpet)
  • Two extra pillows and extra blanket per bedroom.
  • Pillow protective covers (one per sleeping pillow)
  • Charging station (one per bedroom)
  • Optional: Alarm clock, reading lamp, iron/ironing board, robes, crib, changing table
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Bathrooms

  • Hairdryer
  • One small garbage can per bathroom

Kitchen

  • Wine/beer opener
  • Can opener
  • Two hot pads
  • Spatula
  • Two cooking spoons
  • Two large saucepans with lids
  • One large frying pan with lid
  • Two mixing bowls (1 large, 1 medium)
  • Broom and dustpan
  • Dinner plates  (same as allowed guests)
  • Salad plates  (same as allowed guests)
  • Bowls (same as allowed guests)
  • Cutlery sets # (same as allowed guests)
  • Water glasses # (same as allowed guests)
  • Wine glasses # (same as allowed guests)
  • Cookie sheet
  • Colander
  • Two serving spoons
  • Chef knives
  • Coffee mugs
  • Coffeemaker
  • Toaster
  • Cutting board
  • Dishwasher or dish rack
  • Ice cube trays (if no icemaker)
  • Measuring cups
  • Measuring spoons
  • vegetable peeler
  • steak knives
  • salad bowl
  • blender
  • whisk
  • Optional items: roasting pan (think how happy your guests will be when they show up for Thanksgiving with a 20lbs turkey and find a roasting pan), scissors, casserole dish, ice cream scoop,  storage ware, crock pot,  highchair, booster chair.

Outdoor Space

  • Barbeque Grill
  • Tongs
  • Cleaning wire brush

You might find in preparing your home for vacation rentals that you need to add to this list. We believe a home stocked with essential is the minimum you can do and the better stocked the happier your guests will be.

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