Serenity Vacation Rentals gives back!

Over the last six months, we have run a pilot project collecting donations from our guests for the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, and our guests did not disappoint!   We collected an assortment of discarded towels, bed linens, old dog and cat crates, old stuffed toys, and other much needed items!   Many of our guests also made a point to visit Aspen Valley Sanctuary and leave cash donations.    We appreciate each and every one of our guests who took the time to bring items for Aspen Valley when travelling to enjoy their vacation at one of the Serenity Vacation Rentals properties.  

For those of you not familiar with Aspen Valley, they are a 460 acre wildlife sanctuary of natural habitat located in Muskoka.  Their primary mandate is to rehabilitate animals so that they can eventually be returned to their natural habitat.  They also provide education to the community about co-existing with wildlife and humane solutions for wildlife-related issues. The size of Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary makes them one of the most unique and important wildlife rehabilitation centres in Ontario.

Thank you to the following Serenity Vacation Rentals owners for participating in the program;  

·         Birch Grove

·         Copper Cove

·         Curtis Cottage

·         Deep Woods Haven

·         Lee Valley

·         Mallard Beach

·         Muskoka Pines

·         Wraight Escape

I wanted to give a special thanks to the M. Wu family who were guests of Lee Valley, and left a cash donation of $50 for the sanctuary.  I also want to thank the owners of Muskoka Pines for their cash donation of $30.  Serenity Vacation Rentals matched the cash donations and a total of $160 was given along with the donated items.

Lastly I want to thank everyone at Aspen Valley for all of their very important work!   You are greatly appreciated!   I am hopeful six months from now we can more than double the requested items and cash donations!

You can see a YouTube video of a private tour we did of Aspen Valley in 2015 here.

Dean Curtis

Serenity Vacation Rentals

The 5 best things about a winter stay at the cottage.

Winter can be an amazing time of year to stay at the cottage!   Here are 5 of the best things about a winter stay at the cottage!

1. Reading a book by the fireplace.   There is nothing better than sitting by a warm fire while avoiding the cold outside.  Imagine holding your hot chocolate while your socked feet are held close to the wood burning fire.   You can smell the wood burning while you quietly read your favorite book.   The quiet and peacefulness that comes with winter stays at the cottage are just what the sole needs after a stressful work schedule.
2. Winter fun activities!   Try your hand at building a snowman with the kids or go tobogganing at a nearby hill.  Rent snowmobiles for the day and hit the trails with good friends.   Rent ski’s or snowshoes and try some of the local trails.  Or if the ice is thick enough, how about some lake ice hockey or ice fishing!
3. Trying new recipes.   Now is your chance to try that soup recipe or perhaps you’ve been
   
   excited to make a new stew or chili.  Winter time at the cottage is perfect for home cooking with family and friends, and your chance to try some winter favourites.
4. Watching a movie with a warm blanket.   Whether your pick is a late night horror movie, or a daytime seasonal Christmas special that brings a joyful tear to your eye, with the dark nights getting longer, it is the perfect chance to catch up on your favourite movies or tv shows after a day of winter activities with your family.
5. Connecting with friends – What better way to beat the winter blues than to get away from the hustle and bustle of the city, and reconnect with friends or family at the cottage.   Getting tired of the same driveway shoveling, work, and winter traffic in the city?   Get out of the city and into the country for some rest and relaxation as well as the peace and quiet that comes with winter stays at the cottage.
   

Charge me a security deposit….PLEASE!!

If you have rented a cottage vacation rental in the past, you have probably been asked to pay a security deposit.   I have seen these deposits range anywhere between $150, to $2,000 depending on the value of the cottage, the length of your stay, the number of people in your group, pets, etc.  This deposit is kept by the owner until the end of your stay, at which time it is returned to you provided there are no damages to the property or contents, outside of normal wear and tear.

There has been a movement lately from the cottage owner community, to forego taking security deposits.   Only 2 percent of the time is there a need for a cottage owner to draw funds from a security deposit anyway.   For cottage owners, there is a lot of work involved in collecting and returning deposits, and there are very few times when a deposit is even used to cover any damages.   Of those few times, the amounts are fairly small and usually are for damages that the guests fully admit to causing and are willing to pay.   For the cottage owner, it is easier for the accounting on their end if they don’t have to worry about collecting and returning the deposit.  It is not that the owners are willing to give up that added protection.  There are two different ways that cottage owners can still ensure the same protection against damage, without having to directly charge the guests a refundable security deposit.

1. Guests are all charged a small additional fee hidden in the rental charge.  Instead of that cottage costing you $1,000 per stay, it is now going to cost you $1,025.   There is no additional security deposit to be paid up front and there is nothing that will be returned after your stay.   You are simply paying $1,025 to rent the cottage with no security deposit.   Nice right?....  The owner then takes these numerous extra $25 payments and funds a private damages fund.   This fund is then used to cover any damages up to a certain amount.   (There would still be wording in the contract that they could seek compensation for larger ticket items), but for smaller damages they would draw from this private fund.
   
   
2. The second model is to force guests to purchase a separate insurance.   This is basically the same as the point above, however it is a more formalized cottage guest insurance, usually managed and run by a third party.   Again, this is an additional cost to you the guest, which would have you paying more to rent the cottage overall.

So what does this mean to you the cottage rental guest?   If you are the type of guest who loves to come to the cottage and plan to take care of the cottage like it was your own, it means you are paying an extra fee for damages that someone else will cause in the future!   Instead of paying $1,000 for a rental charge plus $400 which is returned to you in full after your stay, you are now paying $1,025 or $1,050 for a loss of $50.  

In the first scenario above, let’s consider a cottage that rents 50 times in a year and charges a hidden $50 per rental to cover damages.    The damages fund now has a total of $2,500 for the year.    What happens if the owner doesn’t have that much in damages over the year?  You guessed it – the owner gets to pocket that money

So if I’m a guest for your rental cottage I say charge me the deposit!   I know I will take care of the place and I don’t want to pay more than I need to, paying for someone else’s damages!

What do you think?  Would you rather pay a slightly higher rental charge?   Or less in rental fee but with an additional security deposit which is refunded to you after your stay?   I’d love to hear comments and thoughts from those of you who have rented cottages!

Dean Curtis

Serenity Vacation Rentals

Save money on your next cottage vacation rental!

How would you like to save some money the next time you are looking for a cottage vacation rental?   Below I give some insight on what is costs the owners to list on those sites and how you can get the best price when shopping for your cottage vacation!

When guests are looking to get away for a vacation, they have a lot of options at their disposal.  Airbnb, VRBO, TripAdvisor, and Booking.com, are a few of the larger vacation rental platforms prospective guests can use to find their perfect vacation getaway.   There are many more sites available, and it seems that every week there are more platforms coming on board to take their slice of the vacation rental pie.   So how do you as a traveler, find the best deals for a cottage vacation rental?  First let me tell you how the sites work from the viewpoint of a vacation rental owner.

Airbnb and TripAdvisor - Both of these sites do not charge the owners to list their property.   If a guest books the property through the platform, the site simply takes a small percentage of the money as their compensation (usually around 3 percent).   So an owner who decides they want $200 for that one night at their property, will simply increase the price so that the portal gets their commission and the owner still gets her $200 to cover the bills, expenses, and hopefully have some left over as profit.


VRBO - Runs a bit different than the first two, in that it charges the owners a fee to list their property. The site does not take any commissions on bookings from the owners.   How does VRBO make its money?   VRBO charges the guest a "booking fee", which is essentially a commission on the transaction, but they charge the guest up front to book.  There is no need for the owner to increase their price as they still get their $200, but the guest still pays a higher price covering the VRBO booking fee.

Booking.com - This is a again free for the owners to list, but the owners receive a commission invoice at the end of each month to pay for bookings generated from the listing site.   So what do owners do to offset those costs?  You guessed it, the owner will increase their rates on this site as well so they take home that same $200 for a single night rental.


So what does this mean to you, the rental guest who wants to have the best vacation they can have at the lowest possible price?   It means that you should book directly from the owner or rental company.   At the very least find their website to compare prices.  Many times you can save hundreds of dollars by sourcing them directly.   By all means, look on one of the portals to find the cottage you are interested in!   But if you see "Oak Bay Hideaway" in Port Severn on Airbnb, or "Birch Grove" in Parry Sound on VRBO, take the time to do a google search for the same property and location.  Many times you will find the direct website where you can book at discounted prices!

Take your savings and put it towards your next vacation!  Have a fantastic summer!