written by Dayna Schmidt
My mom is a vacation-planning whiz. Starting about three or four months in advance, she’ll hunt down just the right cottage for us to stay in, spending weeks making phone calls, writing emails and waiting for responses. Then she’ll narrow it down based on availability, price and accommodations we need, and a few weeks before we head out of town, we’ll be booked…and hopefully everything will be just as they said it would.
Tim Choate of RedAwning felt my mother’s pain. He knew firsthand just how frustrating, time consuming, and often downright unnerving it is when renting a faraway place sight unseen, not knowing for sure it exists or is presented accurately. And he decided to change the game.
“We’ve taken the power of the internet to recreate the market,” says Holly Nuss, Director of Marketing and Communication. “Now you can book online like you would a hotel room.”
Catering to people who want to rent a vacation home, RedAwning has created a simple, easy-to-use platform where you just plug in the location, dates and amenities of your desired vacation home, and the listings are available to rent then and there. A plethora of pictures and detailed descriptions are always listed.
“People want to know they’re getting a decent place to stay, and they want it to be simple,” says Huss.
But RedAwning isn’t just catering to vacationers. Anyone with a vacation home, including realtors, can list their vacation home with RedAwning. The bonus? They can still list other places. RedAwning serves as a third party vendor, giving peace of mind to the homeowner as well.
“We bring them bookings, not just emails,” says Huss.
And with an 80% vacancy average in the rental market, that is huge for homeowners. They can allow last-minute deals, which RedAwning then publicizes to its members.
“We’ve been filling a lot of last-minute rentals,” says Huss.
RedAwning currently has over 76 vacation rentals in wine country, San Fransisco and Lake Tahoe, but is quickly expanding. Hawaii may be next on the list.
So next time you’re looking for a vacation home, don’t do it my mom’s way. Go to RedAwning.com. As Huss said, “it’s a service where you’ll feel like you’re coming home.”
