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12-19-2011 - New Social Media...Connect with us
With nearly all the world connected to social media it is becoming one of the best ways to reach out to customers and build relationships. Lately we have been working on our social media pages and hope you will join us on Facebook or Twitter!
TripAngle Facebook
TripAngle Twitter
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12-19-2011 - New Water Park coming to Downtown Corpus Christi!
The Corpus Christi Downtown/Bay Front area will have a new attraction coming April 14, 2012. Hurricane Alley will be Corpus Christi's first water park located on 2.5 acres and features:
A six-story slide, racing slides, a lazy river, wave pool and concession areas.
The park will only be about a mile from some of our rentals, contact us for more information.
For more information about this exciting park, please click on the link below:
HurricaneAlleyCC.com
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08-17-2011 - All of our Owners and Renters should see what we are doing!
We have streamlined the booking process and will be offering it to our Owners FREE! With this, our guests pay less, as the owners have no overhead! Email us for more details! | |
05-01-2011 - Traveling on A Budget
From the new office of Derek Gisriel
For immediate release.
It goes to figure that just as the economy is picking back up the summer comes to a close.
Let's say you want to take the family of four to Colorado but you want to get the best bang for your buck. There are numerous ways to get the best value for your hard earned money, from online booking to budgets.
Online Booking
Many airlines offer last minute deals from any airport in the country. You may also save money by booking in advance. If you are looking for a good deal try booking 11 months in advance or within 3 weeks of your trip (for last minute deals). Many airlines try to offload extra inventory at the last minute to avoid losing money flights.
Packages
Taking advantage of sites such as Travelocity.com can save even more money. Often times travel sites will offer large discounts on entertainment and activities in your destination city. Plays, bowling, dinner cruises, and many other activities are often sold at pennies on the dollar.
Online Rentals
Using Tripangle.com will allow you to quickly and securely book vacation rentals at low costs while offering high value condos. In many ways booking a condo is much better than staying at a hotel. Why not consider staying in a rented condo that offers direct beach access, private pools, and larger amenities. How many times do you check into a hotel and have a full kitchen? Not too often...or risk paying much more.
Food
Food is one of the most expensive costs when vacationing. A great way to save money and time is to visit the local grocery store and pick up snacks or quick meals that can be prepared easily. Pack sandwiches and some fruit when heading to the beach to minimize inflated tourist prices and save time. Of course, vacation is about relaxing and who doesn't enjoying dining out? Dinner can be done cheaply too by eating where the locals eat, and these are often the best places to eat (shhh)!
Book online now to ensure the best prices possible. The lowered spring rates are now available, take advantage of them before the summer rates!
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08-05-2010 - Announcing the Partnership of Travelocity
From the sandy beaches of Texas
For immediate release, of course.
Derek Gisriel
And....the summer is wrapping up! Sales are still steady and bookings are strong. One thing remains the same: the need for solid promotion.
Announcing partnership with Travelocity. For the past month TripAngle has been working closely with Travelocity, a multi-billion dollar company specializing in promotion of vacation rentals. Travelocity offers real marketing solutions to you, the condo owner.
In the upcoming weeks TripAngle will be testing out 11 pilot properties in the Corpus Christi area. The success of these properties is expected to increase rentals exponentially and bring in great dividends for the owners.
The partnership with Travelocity brings our owner's condos to the faces of millions.
Look for more news about this partnership in the upcoming weeks.
For more information, and to have your property considered, please contact us.
Have a great summer!
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07-28-2010 - Property Management?
From the wooden desk of Derek Gisriel
For immediate release, of course.
Owning a fabulous and well decorated, highly valued, beach front, mountain view, close to ski slopes, condo is easy compared to the nightmares of traditional property management and renting that condo out.
So that leads me to wonder why, why is it such a hassle to rent out that property? You may know that you will have no problems renting your condo out. Beautiful amenities and ample praise bring renters flocking in. But the problem is somewhat evident and can be broken down into some general classification of property management:
-Dealing with poor tenants
-Maintenance & repairs
-Anything "legal"
-Showing the property when it's vacant
-The possibility of negative cash-flow
-Taxes
Now that those are out in the open, are there anymore? Well of course there can be but we will focus on these for now. These factors above can be significantly minimized if not eliminated depending on your method of handling these problem channels-except taxes, but I have an idea for those.
Addressing the items:
Poor Tenants- Although, mostly, you are renting your condo out on a day-by-day or weekly basis you every now and ten run into those 'sticker tenants.' These tenants are renting out your condo and promising you a check in the mail, which you must let clear before mailing keys. OR you have advanced your ways and are accepting credit cards with a nominal deposit of $100, or 10% of the total rent fees. Who processes the card at all hours of the day, works as a liaison between the tenant's bank and your customer, and negotiates with chargeback's from your merchant account? Until now it is you.
Maintenance & Repairs - I've heard this a lot, and yes even newer properties require a lot of maintenance and repairs regardless if they are rented or not. Newer properties (which there are a lot of on the market really cheap right now) don't have so much maintenance problems, but even a new yacht sitting in the water requires maintenance. Repairs will be there whether somebody is renting or not, and if the tenant caused the problem, the tenant pays for it typically. This brings up another question-contract(s). Who draws up a legalized contract holding the tenant responsible for cleaning, and any damage caused by it. Until now, it is you, or your legal department, amounting in thousands of dollars in fees or months of lost rent. Which brings me to my next point.
Legal Stuff - I agree here, if anything legal comes up it puts a dent in the pocketbook, but this can be avoided by simple legal lingo in a contract. Mostly the idea is to stray far away from lawyers as long as possible. Their job is to create conflict to keep themselves in business. But the point is to avoid legal issues in the first place, and that all begins with a solid rental contract that not only looks out for you, the owner, but also your tenants. In property management, I have seen thousands of times where the owner is left with a mess of a condo but they are protected by our checkout process, allowing the owner rights to charge for damage. Again, until now, this has been all taken care of by yourself.
Showing the Property- In this day and age, it is a rarity. Gone, for the most part, are the days where you meet your tenant when they arrive into town. Occasionally, some tenants are skeptical of your condo or they just simply want to justify their $300 per night purchase. Of course this can all be avoided with a supreme online spread of your condo and great pictures. Installing a virtual 360 view, a low cost option, can further suppress you tenant's hesitancy. In the end it is worth it, but who does shows your tenants the property, gives you a median online, and promotes your condo, until now it has been you.
Negative Cash-flow - This all begins with the purchase. You are deciding whether you're going to have positive cash flow on a rental at the time of purchase. You don't have the option later. So choose wisely. This can be mitigated by the variable of rental income. Again, how much will you be pulling in versus sending out, a simple equation. You variable can be solved by listing your property on a website that increases bookings 10-fold. In many cases I have owners recruiting half of their condo complex due to neighbors noticing how much business they are getting.
Taxes & Accounting- We all hate them, we all have to pay them, and they will never get any cheaper-but let's think of a simpler process. The good news is, you have to make money to pay taxes, if you're not already doing this you are probably looking for a better solution. So if you're complaining about your tax bill it means you are making money which is better than a lot of property owners these days! If you are using a good property management software application, such as TripAngle, to track the ins and outs, taxes take a matter of minutes for each property instead of hours. In general, accounting is quite simple for rentals given the proper tools. The innovative and custom management software developed by TripAngle complies booking automation, credit card processing, keyless entry (no more cutting keys), accounting, and cleaning automation--all in one seamless login.
That covers the nasty sections of property management. Perhaps my experiences are different than others, but property management in itself is actually pretty easy, especially when you have the right company, and software, on your side. A well-chosen condo can bring in around $4800/yr profit (just from rent) at a cost of 2-3 hours of your time using a traditional property management company. That is $1600/hr.
Of course, with the correct company you can spend 1 hour of your time uploading pictures, description and pricing, while bringing in around 19000/yr profit (from rent) spending 1-2 hours on your listing using TripAngle. That is $9,000/hr.
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