Just curious about the cottage occupancy rates since we're late in the season. Was it a good year ?? Bad year ?? Or just typical.
I guess all you realty peeps out there would be best qualified to answer that question.

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Just curious about the cottage occupancy rates since we're late in the season. Was it a good year ?? Bad year ?? Or just typical.
I guess all you realty peeps out there would be best qualified to answer that question.

Much Slower than last year.

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Same as last year. Fully booked through both shoulders. Winter is slowing down but Punta Cana is a better place in mid-January.

wolfswishingstar.com

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Same as last year. Fully booked through both shoulders. Winter is slowing down but Punta Cana is a better place in mid-January.

Nice place (; 197.00 a night seems like a deal.

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From my small viewpoint of the pie as a housekeeping manager, I would say much slower this year as well.

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In our neighborhood... Less homes have PM For Rent signs than a few years back.... but more homes (with no signs) have out of state plates revolving through. Can't say for sure whether these are friends and family visiting, or VRBO/AirBnB renters. Occupancy may be harder to measure using previous methods.

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The word I hear from our rental manager is that things started off a little slow, but picked up to full speed by summer. Occupancy, in general, was about what it was last year. 2020 was the crazy year followed by 2021. Things dropped a bit in 2022 as the covid stuff was ending and this year was about the same as last year. This is the middle of the OBX, I don't follow Corolla or Hatteras.

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Im not a realty peep, but simply searching this year has shown a trend from my perspective. We stay in the Tri Villages every year in September. 2020 through 2022 we stayed either the 2nd or 3rd week. Rented through the same company each year. All those years the rental company had no avaulable houses the week we were there. This year we are staying the week of 9/23. As of right now the same company has 34 houses available in the Tri Villages for that week. 64 houses available in all Hatteras villages. The other thing I noticed is that there were houses not rented in July, and there are plenty of available houses even this week, next week and beyond in September. The last few years that was not the case.

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Im not a realty peep, but simply searching this year has shown a trend from my perspective. We stay in the Tri Villages every year in September. 2020 through 2022 we stayed either the 2nd or 3rd week. Rented through the same company each year. All those years the rental company had no avaulable houses the week we were there. This year we are staying the week of 9/23. As of right now the same company has 34 houses available in the Tri Villages for that week. 64 houses available in all Hatteras villages. The other thing I noticed is that there were houses not rented in July, and there are plenty of available houses even this week, next week and beyond in September. The last few years that was not the case.

That's the truth of the matter. Unless you were willing to cut your price in half and rent to all comers, pets, smokers, spring breakers, etc you will have seen a drop. There are a whole slew of big, dark unoccupied rentals up here in Corolla this month. Air-BB property views are HALF of what they were last year across the boards. People who work in the industry will be reluctant to share bad news for good reason. It's bad for business. Credit card debt is out of control and people are paying 30% on their cards right now. Two take-out breakfast sandwiches with coffee is 30 bucks in town. Food and fuel prices are crazy all over. There's a reason they don't include either of them in the inflation numbers.

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Hi, everyone,
I am a three-year lurker on this board having had nothing meaningful to contribute thus far. For that matter, I've never been to the Outer Banks, but I'd like to do so some day, and know people who go there every summer.

This thread caught my attention from a comparison perspective. Let me explain. I live in the Phila. suburbs, a region where many residents spend at least a week's vacation in a rental somewhere on the Jersey shore, e.g. Ocean City, Avalon, Cape May, to name a few. Just this weekend I stumbled upon a newsletter from the Phila. Inquirer titled, "Down the Shore." One blog/article concerned the current cost of summer rentals at the Jersey shore, particularly as they compared to the years impacted by Covid (2020-2022).

According to one long-time summer renter, the higher-than-usual prices charged by homeowners over the last three summers have now become untenable, compelling former and potential renters to spend their vacations elsewhere.

As the season comes to a close, owners of rentals at some NJ shore towns are dropping their prices, since there are still numerous homes going unrented.

I've included the link for anyone interested. You may have to provide your email to gain access, however, there is no fee to read the main blog posts.

www.inquirer.com/news/new...

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I just searched Outer Banks on VRBO for next week with six adults to eliminate most two bedroom condos. 497 places available.

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We booked almost a year in advance for this coming Oct because we really wanted the same house we had last year. Won’t do that again!
Will wait and book sometime late spring even if we go to a different house. Apparently inventory WON’T be a problem from what is being reported here.
We prefer to wait and take our chances. Too many variables when you book that far in advance. Political instability being a big one!

At this point we have a 6 bedroom (5 master suites!) house and are only going to be using 3 of the bedrooms due to unexpected circumstances, which means my hubby and I will be footing almost the whole cost.
I had a feeling we’d regret booking so far in advance. We did it based on the previous couple of years. Looks like things have really shifted.

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I knew something was up when we were able to last minute rent a nice place in SNH this past MAY (shoulder month) at a significant discount because at that point none of their weeks in May were booked.

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Like you, Lolli I was able to get a place last minute in Delaware next week for a good price and they accepted our reservation for just four nights.

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Good for you, Greg!
Stayed in Bethany beach for a girls get away with my daughter couple years ago.
Not the banks but nice

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I was fully booked prime but my shoulder weeks are back to a pre Covid rental conditions. I am rented 3 weeks in Sept. and two 5 day stays in October. It makes sense that this would happen, people are going back to offices and schools, kids activities are in full swing. Ocean front are always rented, any any other vacation rental is seeing a down turn for shoulder season. Prices in shoulder season are following quickly.
You should see rates in 2024 prime drop but how much? 10% 20%? Prime season even before covid occupancy rate was about 97%. The OBX is still much cheaper the LBI, Rehobeth, Nantucket, Cape Cod, Kiawah etc etc and you get much more amenities such as pools. My brother and his family usually vacations with a group of families and rents an oceanfront in corolla with pool and all the bells and whistles. This summer he wanted to change it up so he and another family rented a house in Nantucket-last week in June, which is not even prime season it cost 10,500 for a 4 bed 2 bath house (no pool no oceanfront))plus don't forget the 500.00 ferry ride to bring the car on the island. Next summer he is back to Corolla.

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$500.00 ferry ride!!!!
I guess that keeps out the riff raff (like me).

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Keep raising the rental rates beyond COL or let greedflation take over and we will see how low the occupancy rate can go

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Never changed our rates for 2023 and have not missed a beat. I will say the cost of everything related to having a beach rental have gone WAY up.

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Good for you, Greg!
Stayed in Bethany beach for a girls get away with my daughter couple years ago.
Not the banks but nice

We have never stayed in Bethany, it looks very nice but it's too crowded for us. Which brings another thought to mind; if rental rates are high because occupancy is high, we go in a different direction, away from the crowds. VRBO makes it easy to put in what you want, when you want it and how much you want to spend. Then pick from the results. Just watch out for Vacasa managed properties and read the reviews.

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$500.00 ferry ride!!!!
I guess that keeps out the riff raff (like me).

Lol, me too. Unless they're serving all you can eat lobster then, wait... still nope.

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Never changed our rates for 2023 and have not missed a beat. I will say the cost of everything related to having a beach rental have gone WAY up.

Yeah, no kidding. My insurance is up 20%. I'm shopping around without much hope. I'm also in the middle of a major roof repair that would have cost me an arm and a leg if I were not doing it myself.

Last year we only accepted a couple rentals with children after we had a couple wild-ones jumping off the bunk beds and screaming bloody murder all week. We were able to do that without any problem. This year we declined several bookings thinking we could get away with that again this year. That turned out to be a mistake.

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Never changed our rates for 2023 and have not missed a beat. I will say the cost of everything related to having a beach rental have gone WAY up.

Yeah, no kidding. My insurance is up 20%. I'm shopping around without much hope. I'm also in the middle of a major roof repair that would have cost me an arm and a leg if I were not doing it myself.

Last year we only accepted a couple rentals with children after we had a couple wild-ones jumping off the bunk beds and screaming bloody murder all week. We were able to do that without any problem. This year we declined several bookings thinking we could get away with that again this year. That turned out to be a mistake.

In 21 years of renting we have had the most damage from kids and not pets. Worst damage was from a family who thought heir kids throwing "pop it's" ( those paper wrapped exploding pods) were a good idea.
We ended up painting the entire inside of the house to get rid of the burn marks on the walls. The mother was absolutely incredulous that her kids did it and threatened to sue us and the rental company when billed for the damage. In the end the damage insurance covered most of it and they paid the rest of it out of pocket.

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Never changed our rates for 2023 and have not missed a beat. I will say the cost of everything related to having a beach rental have gone WAY up.

Yeah, no kidding. My insurance is up 20%. I'm shopping around without much hope. I'm also in the middle of a major roof repair that would have cost me an arm and a leg if I were not doing it myself.

Last year we only accepted a couple rentals with children after we had a couple wild-ones jumping off the bunk beds and screaming bloody murder all week. We were able to do that without any problem. This year we declined several bookings thinking we could get away with that again this year. That turned out to be a mistake.

In 21 years of renting we have had the most damage from kids and not pets. Worst damage was from a family who thought heir kids throwing "pop it's" ( those paper wrapped exploding pods) were a good idea.
We ended up painting the entire inside of the house to get rid of the burn marks on the walls. The mother was absolutely incredulous that her kids did it and threatened to sue us and the rental company when billed for the damage. In the end the damage insurance covered most of it and they paid the rest of it out of pocket.

What the hell is wrong with people?

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What the hell is wrong with people?

You should see how folks treat long term rentals, with and without kids.

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