View Full Version : running a villa management company ???
RUSHBURY
14-06-2004, 21:46
Hi
Does anyone have any experience of running a villa management company? I would like to know the pluses and most importantly the minuses of this type of work.
Thanks
Helen
Wait until Julie (Esprit) comes on later this evening. She moved over last year and is currently my (and a couple of others) MC. Very hard work, often dirty, and you are on call 24 hours a day - no social life.
Cruella DeVilla
15-06-2004, 06:15
It is something I have thought about also. Hubby not so keen as he has past experience in UK, it is all sorts of demand on your time: 24/7.
CDV[}:)]
You said it, Fi ( but all your guests are lovely!!!)
It is hard work, especially if you are small and do it all yourself. If you have 40 or 50 homes and can subcontract everything and just sit in an office and go round checking, it is different but a man co that big will cost you around $300,000 to buy.
You are piggie in the middle for most of the time, trying to keep costs down for your owners yet standards up for your guests. Most guests are lovely but some more used to hotels think of you as a sort of a maid on call all the time. You have to get used to being called out at all hours sometimes for ridiculous things. The words mc and got your own life dont correlate!! No holidays, even an evening out can be difficult. I do enjoy seeing the homes looking nice, but cleaning is really hard work if you do it yourself and picking up garbage isnt exactly glam. There are almost 800 of us doing this job and it is overcrowded. However it is definitely preferable to some other businesses, at least it is varied. I for one would not fancy doing 120 pools or lawna a week in the sun, boring or what.
On E2, steer clear of the man cos which are 20, 25 or 30 contracts sold by a larger man co. I know people who have done very well with these but the embassy just doesnt like them. You have to find a small man co which is a separate entity which has been trading for a while and with tax returns.
iam told its hard to find good cleaners .if you know of any ,,please let me know [msnwink][msnwink]
chrizzy100
15-06-2004, 07:58
<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by esprit
You said it, Fi ( but all your guests are lovely!!!)
It is hard work, especially if you are small and do it all yourself. If you have 40 or 50 homes and can subcontract everything and just sit in an office and go round checking, it is different but a man co that big will cost you around $300,000 to buy.
You are piggie in the middle for most of the time, trying to keep costs down for your owners yet standards up for your guests. Most guests are lovely but some more used to hotels think of you as a sort of a maid on call all the time. You have to get used to being called out at all hours sometimes for ridiculous things. The words mc and got your own life dont correlate!! No holidays, even an evening out can be difficult. I do enjoy seeing the homes looking nice, but cleaning is really hard work if you do it yourself and picking up garbage isnt exactly glam. There are almost 800 of us doing this job and it is overcrowded. However it is definitely preferable to some other businesses, at least it is varied. I for one would not fancy doing 120 pools or lawna a week in the sun, boring or what.
On E2, steer clear of the man cos which are 20, 25 or 30 contracts sold by a larger man co. I know people who have done very well with these but the embassy just doesnt like them. You have to find a small man co which is a separate entity which has been trading for a while and with tax returns.
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Cleaning is very very very hard work....there is a big difference between how you clean your own home....and how clean a house needs to be for holiday rental....I love to see a house look like new after a good clean......but I'm not sure I could do it for the rest of my life....or full time......and lawn care must be a nightmare in the summer...........
Would you get an E2 visa by buying a MC that was only say 10 homes, or would that not be big enough ?
THINK YOU WILL FIND TO MAKE A LIVING 10 HOMES IS NOT ENOUGH YOU WOULD NOT SURVIVE...
YOU WILL NEED AT LEAST 25 + TO EARN JUST ENOUGH TO LIVE..
WORK OUT THE MATHS ... ITS NOT A HIGH EARNER FOR THE HOURS YOU PUT IN..
I realise that but I wondered if this would allow you to get the E2 visa, the other half working too, could he apply for any jobs while still over here ?
An E2 visa dependent has to apply for permission to work - it usually takes about 6 months to come through after an E2 has been granted.
As Jeff has said, the income from 10 homes almost certainly won't be enough to get an E2 visa as you need an income of around $60 - $70k and this won't provide it.
chrizzy100
24-06-2004, 17:23
<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by blott
An E2 visa dependent has to apply for permission to work - it usually takes about 6 months to come through after an E2 has been granted.
As Jeff has said, the income from 10 homes almost certainly won't be enough to get an E2 visa as you need an income of around $60 - $70k and this won't provide it.
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If looking after 10 homes made $60k plus......I'd be doing it..........:D:D:D
thats the perception many owners have of the small man comps that they are really making a lot of money from them..
but in real life you are not...
you have to break it down to man hours and you will be shocked at how much you really make..
I would agree with jeffc on this and that the problem is man hours. A small simple repair needing a part will necessitate a trip to Home Depot either south of Haines on 27, right down 192 near Medieval Times or up on Colonial ( 50) or OBT. Any of those can necessitate a two hour return trip expecially with the traffio as bad as it is. So with the repair, this process can take half a working day but if a commensurate bill for the time were put into the owner, he would see only the repair and think it is expensive. We all like to keep the bills down for the owners as much as possible so sometimes the time element just gets lost. A Home depot at Four Corners would really help, the WalMart is better than nothing.
The mad thing is that the ideal for the owner is a small man co with say 10-15 homes doing a very good job on those houses. The problem is unless they have a pension or another business to supplement income, the man agent isnt making a living on that many homes. Someone once said to me, my former caretakers used to be really good when they just had 13 homes and then they got greedy. No actually, then they started making ends meet, greed doesnt really come into it. The average management fee has not changed much in the 7 years since I first bought neither has the cleaning fee, but the houses have changed, they have more bathrooms, more things like computers, games machines and equipment, electronic equipment etc to take care of. The more you put in a house, the more can go wrong and cause a call out and this is why some big man cos wont have computers, safes even DVDs in the houses as they wont take the responsability. The management/call out fee ( 24 hours, 31 days a month!!) is only slightly more than $3 per day per home, work it out!! This is why so many management agents turn to realty.
The only way you would get an E2 with 10 homes is if you were making more money out of some of the homes than a man co usually does. So if you own some of the homes yourself for example. The money an E2 deoendant earns is not taken into account at all for E2 or for E2 renewal. I know of several cases where one party is running an E2 business and the other has set up as a realtor quite sucessfully and probably making more from that than the E2 business does, but if that is earned through work on a dependants work permit, it is not relevant for immigration purposes.
steph_goodrum
22-08-2004, 16:57
". A Home depot at Four Corners would really help, the WalMart is better than nothing."
The new Walmart and Lowes just north of the 192 might make thing a lot easier for you Julie will it?
It will for anyone working around Four Corners area as it cuts down on travel time and costs. At the moment we are going south of Haines or up 27 to Colonial for a small part and the travelling times are immense, Not only that, but the gas price now is making even that significant ( dont shoot me, I know it isnt like the UK!!). I dont think they have started on the Lowes yet, but the sign is now up for hiring staff at the WalMart.
christina
25-10-2004, 16:16
We have met a few people that have done exactly this and they all say the same, 24/7 and very hard work. We were offered a management company but turned it down for this reason. We would like to retire to Florida.
chrizzy100
25-10-2004, 18:42
I just read on Rays site that one of the large newspaper companies in the UK had an ad saying that they could get you a greencard if you had a place worth $280k or there abouts in the USA....I just looked at it quick.....I'll have to go read it again......if it were that simple....I think everyone would be doing it......
There is a realtor hehind that somewhere. The correct figure is $500,000 in an area of low economic development or $1 million elsewhere and not in property but in business.
andycoll
31-10-2004, 00:11
<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by chrizzy100
I just read on Rays site that one of the large newspaper companies in the UK had an ad saying that they could get you a greencard if you had a place worth $280k or there abouts in the USA....I just looked at it quick.....I'll have to go read it again......if it were that simple....I think everyone would be doing it......
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This was displayed as one of the many scams that are about I think