As we approach March, that means countless tourists, college students, and other beachgoers are on their way to enjoy as much of the Florida sun and fun as possible. If you’re a part-time resident, or even just plan to go away to do a bit of traveling yourself, now is the time to make sure your Panama City Beach home is ready to rent out before your guests arrive. The first step, of course, is to tidy and take pictures to post on a vacation rental site and schedule your guests! After that comes the harder part: preparing your home to have strangers in it for a week or more.

De-Clutter

The first step to renting out your Panama City Beach home as a vacation rental, even just a temporary or short-term rental like AirBnB, is to do a heavy-duty cleaning and decluttering of your entire home. This can be an excellent time to do a bit of early spring cleaning, but more importantly, decluttering does two things for your home: it makes it feel cleaner, more spacious, and more inviting to a guest, and it gives you the chance to take inventory. The unfortunate truth is that sometimes accidents happen when it comes to renting out your home and a guest may pack a book they thought was theirs. However, especially if you’re going to withhold part of the deposit, you’ll need to know the state of things before the guests’ visit so you can know whether that broken window was your guest or your child.

Stock the Basics

Most guests paying to stay in your home are expecting you to have the basics so they don’t have to pack them and potentially try to fly with them. You probably already have plenty of fresh sheets and towels to leave, but you’ll also need to stock up on a few living necessities like toilet paper and soap. In addition, your guests will be expecting usable cooking ware and appliances, so if you’ve been meaning to replace your pots and pans or fix your microwave, now is a good time.

Move Your Valuables

We assume you already know better than to just leave your jewelry box full of expensive family jewelry sitting in plain view on your dresser when you leave for a week. Sure, you want to give people the benefit of the doubt, but some decisions feel like they are tempting fate a bit too much. If you have a safe in your home, be sure you’ve locked up your valuables before you leave; if not, you’ll want to take those important items with you or find a trusted family member or friend with whom to leave those things. The other big item you’ll want to remember is anything with sensitive identifying information on it. Birth certificates, social security or tax documents, even your will and bank statements should all be packed up and stored somewhere that they won’t be stumbled on by your renters.

Secure Your Home

Renting out your home as a vacation rental can be an excellent way to supplement your income or cover the cost of a mortgage for a second home at which you only live part time. If you rent your home out regularly – or you just want added security – there are a couple measures you should be taking for the safety and security of your home. We suggest a keyless deadbolt for the primary entrance to your home and, for those of you who rent frequently, a home security system. A keyless deadbolt is a great security option because you can usually set multiple entry codes; this way, you can have a primary code for your family and change a second code for renters. Once the rental period is over, you can either reset the code to something new or, with some keyless deadbolt models, simply set it to expire.

For those of you who rent your home out regularly, a home security system can provide an additional layer of security. You can be sure your renters leave on time, don’t wreck the house, and even ward off potential break-ins in between renters.

If you need to increase the security for your home or vacation rental, call Destin Locksmithing. Our expert team is experienced in installing keyless deadbolts, home security systems, and more, so call today!