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Here on the 'Listing With Us' Page of our website, we've presented a 'Quick', bullet-pointed list of how we list properties for those that don't want to go into all the details and just want the 'bottom line'. Below that, we've presented a longer, more detailed list regarding listing with us that refers to the most common questions people have asked us prior to listing with us. Whether you have only a minute to review our service menu, or 10 minutes, we hope to address your immediate questions and interest in us. Please don't hesitate to contact us with other questions.  'Quick Review' Listing Points:
 'Detailed' Listing Points: Not just any vacation home can be an On the Water in Maine home. When a property owner contacts us to list their home, they typically send us a few photos to review by e-mail. From there, we review the rental capabilities of the property coupled with the knowledge of what our renters are looking for. While we serve to help our owners generate income in their investment properties, we also serve our guests to ensure that we offer them vacation homes that meet their hard earned vacation needs. Only one in three vacation homes we review has what it takes to be an On the Water in Maine vacation home.  After deciding that you might have a On the Water in Maine property, we will typically visit the property, meet with you, take some photos and possibly go over what might need improving to seek a higher dollar amount. We often hear people say they see our logo'd trucks in Jonesport as well as York Beach - we're always traveling the state to seek out new properties to list and offer to our guests. With our rental boat fleet, we are as likely to come visit your property by water as we are by land - no matter what time of year. About half the time, we are fortunate to meet with an owner at their property, but often, since many vacation property owners live out of state, we meet a caretaker at the property. Some just tell us where to access the "hidden key". With some properties, like our Sunset Cottage and Cowseagan listings, we are involved from the time construction begins or before a property is purchased. It's not unusual for us to visit the site of a potential rental home long before it is ready to market and rent. It's also not unusual for us to list an island property in the dead of winter under a blanket of snow with boards on the windows. We first visited our Sutton Island property in the dead of winter on a minus-5 degree cold day. After being dropped off at the island by a lobster boat and wading a mile through a foot of snow, we peeled off the plywood covering the front door and went in to check things out. Trapped on the island after the lobster boat encountered mechanical issues, we made a fire in the wood stove and waited several hours huddled around the stove until another boat could come pick us up. Its one of the best stories we have of visiting a potential rental property as an example that nothing surprises us about viewing a potential rental property.  We get calls and e-mails daily from people interested in purchasing an investment home in Maine with a desire to rent it. We love to help potential buyers review the potential marketability of a home BEFORE they buy it. We've been known to talk someone out of buying a home before they made a big mistake. On the other hand, we've been known to assist people in purchasing a real 'gold mine'. The rental season in Maine is short - on average 8 weeks. If you want a vacation home that will rent at least 8 weeks out of the season, you'll want to know if that is possible first. We can help. After viewing a property and deciding it is the right fit for our company, we'll work with the owner to enter into a legal contract to market and rent the property. Our marketing contracts run on an annual basis over the calendar year. What services to do you offer? We offer lots of services to you - the property owners. More specifically, we know what our renters are looking for, so we are experienced at coming into your property and helping you prepare it to rent - if you have never rented it before - or, we can help even the experienced owner find opportunities to increase their property's rental income. Each year, we travel to various 'furniture hot spots' to buy furnishings and decor on behalf of our owners for their rental properties. In the spring of 2009, we brought back quite a load of new furnishings for, and decorated our Harbor Light Cottage, Sunset Cottage, and Rockport Harbor Overlook #1 rental properties. Tiffany is our in-house decorator. She's helped re-decorate many of our rental properties with great success in increasing the marketability of those properties. Who knows better what the renters want than your rental agents?  If you are based in Rockport, how are you managing vacation homes in Cape Elizabeth, Boothbay Harbor, Jonesport, and other Maine localities that are over an hour from your main office in Rockport? The answer is "easily". We've successfully managed rental homes in all parts of the state over the past 10 years. We've found a formula that works for us. We can put you in touch with the owners of properties we list in Freeport, Cape Elizabeth, Boothbay Harbor and Steuben. We know they'll happily recommend us. We go further into this topic and explain how it works during our initial meeting if you have additional questions. Is On the Water in Maine, Inc. a real estate agency? No. We don't have real estate licenses and we are proud to be an independent vacation rental company - one of only a few in the state. We think a vacation rental company is part of the resort and hospitality industry not the real estate industry. We're more like a mobile-resort than we are a real estate business. We like to focus on ensuring our guests are happy and have all the amenities necessary to have a great vacation experience. Having one focus ensures us success and we believe it separates us from our competition.  How do we know you can manage our vacation home? Take a look at our site, hundreds of other owners are currently letting us manage theirs. Not all the properties we offer for rent are visible on our website. Many are on our long-term rental site, www.waterfrontvillagerentals.com. Some rental properties are "parked" during renovations or construction work. Others are in long-term rental contracts and we don't currently need to be advertising them as available for rent on our site. We've managed the most expensive vacation rental properties in the state including the Ducktrap Retreat Wedding & Conference Center in Lincolnville (which closed in 2009), where we managed and hosted over 50 events, as well as small cottages like our Shore' Nuf Cottage, successfully for over 10 years. Do you have references from other Owners? We've never asked any of the over 400 home owners who have listed with us in the past to give us a reference, but many have offered us a good one anyway (we've posted some of their quotes on this page). We'd like to think all the Christmas cards & gifts we get from our owners each year, as well as all the owners who invite us for tea, dinner, and other events when they are in town are a demonstration of how happy they are with us. We consider most of our owners to be our friends. We'd be happy to share all the positive feedback we've received from owners that have listed with us. Home owners that may have once listed with us, but now no longer list with us, often don't because they have sold their homes or decided simply not to rent it anymore.  Why should I list my home with On the Water in Maine, Inc., and not another real estate agency, or even on the internet on my own through a site like VRBO or CyberRentals? The first part of this question is easy to answer, we offer the best website in Maine, operate with a HUGE advertising budget, low-commissions, and we are open 7 days a week until 9pm. This statement from a renter this past summer should say it all? "[On the Water in Maine] responded so quickly and answered all of our questions that we made our decision [to book with them] immediately. We had made other rental agency inquiries but by the time they responded on Monday, we had already booked with On the Water in Maine. We were very happy with our decision to book with On the Water in Maine. The speed at which they responded determined the agency we ultimately used. We knew if we needed their help while on vacation, they would be there for us, and that is HUGE in this day and age." We're open 7 days a week, 12 hours a day - during the busy booking season between December and May. Because On the Water in Maine is easily available, your property will become less available as we book it up. The second part of this question deserves an answer with a detailed statement. It also addresses the skeptics that question the need of a vacation rental company... If you are a property owner that is well-organized, has lots of free time, checks e-mails hourly, has a phone on you at all times that you can answer, keeps your availability calendar 100% accurate all the time, lives within 15 minutes of your rental home, and enjoys the "small-business" aspect of renting your home out, then you are probably successful at listing your home on your own or on a website like CyberRentals or VRBO. You probably often leave gift bags for your guests and even put out fresh flowers or drop by with homemade blueberry muffins mid-stay. You scrub and clean your vacation home on your own or with some help and take great pride in presenting your vacation home for rent. You probably meet each renter at the property and walk them through it after they arrive. We take our hats off to you. You are the best at what you do and restore confidence that there are people with good character in the world. Unless you are ready to stop doing all that, you should continue to list your home on your own if you enjoy it. You probably wouldn't be happy relinquishing some of the 'control' you have had renting on your own to us. Unfortunately, statistics show that only about 30% of vacation home owners are successful at renting their homes on their own. It's the other 70% of owners that have been less than perfect. While many vacation home owners turned to renting their homes on their own around 1999 with the rise of the internet, many renters have now turned back to rental agencies for one of the most important aspects in renting a vacation home a guarantee. Anyone can take a few pictures of their house, claim its the "perfect" vacation rental with a great beach and great water views and go to work renting it. Renters now know it too. We know first-hand which properties are being mis-advertised out there - hurting the independently advertised vacation home-owner. One example is a rental home in a nearby coastal town that we know of being advertised as having great views of a lighthouse and being "extremely" private. That owner neglects to show that the property is located in a business zone and surrounded by mobile homes. The view of the lighthouse is through power lines and across 4-lanes of highway. You'd never know that from their listing though. There isn't a check-in day in the summer where we don't have renters on our office door-step begging for a last minute rental from us because the rental property they rented from "John Smith" or "Jane Doe" turned out to be mis-advertised, not cleaned well, or, actually rented to someone else a "double-booked" property as we call it in the business. Many renters that have rented through an independent owner have told us that they came to us after horrible experiences, such as having mechanical issues at the homes that they couldn't resolve without assistance from the owner or the owner?s caretaker. Because the owner was on vacation, out of state, or just not easily reached, their vacations were ruined while dealing with problems beyond their control. Just knowing we were available 24/7 with the urgency of knowing that our response to issues they encounter in their rental home would lead to the success of their vacation was critically important. Remember, most of these renters are traveling upwards of 500 miles to come to Maine to stay for a week at a property 'site-unseen". They need to feel reassured that they are coming to a property that is as advertised and that has a 'guarantee'. These actions by the other 70% of independent home owners that have been less than perfect on at least one occasion have hurt the independent rental business, but helped the rental agency business. As members of the VRMA (Vacation Rental Managers Association), we know first-hand how quickly our industry has grown over the past few years as renters have returned to having rental agencies support their vacation property search needs. Here at On the Water in Maine, Inc, we've been a member of the Better Business Bureau for over 5 years with not a single complaint, and only positive feedback. Our repeat renters come back year-after-year because they know they can count on us to "screen" the properties we list and they know that after an all day journey, they will arrive to find a property as advertised, clean, and ready for them to immediately begin their vacation in worry free. 88% of our guests say they will come back and rent with us again when surveyed after their stay (8% of those that say they won't return say their visit to Maine was a 'once-in-a-lifetime' visit). The remaining 2% of guests that say they won't rent from us are part of the small minority of guests that can't be pleased - no matter what you do for them. If you want someone to handle all the work of aggressively selling and renting your vacation home, and work hard doing it then On the Water in Maine's website is the place for it to be listed. In summary, it is our goal at On the Water in Maine, Inc. to provide top customer service as well as fair and competitive pricing. We visit each of the properties we list annually and become familiar with each of them and all that they have to offer. We are already familiar with all the top waterfront locations in Maine from Wells to Scarborough, Sebago to the Saco River, Belgrade to Cobbossee, Rangeley to Moosehead, Bar Harbor, Blue Hill and DownEast and then the Mid-Coast from Belfast down through Camden to Freeport. With our knowledge of these areas, we can help your guests decide where they want to be and what they can do when they get there.  Here is the listing package we present for property owners. Please take a moment to review the package and then contact us so we can discuss working with you: In short, we will completely market and service your rental property. We advertise in all the appropriate places driving traffic to our website, and even include free listings on over 10 other vacation rental websites like HomeAway, CyberRentals and 1st Choice. When your guests make their initial contact with us, we will treat them as the special customers that they are and respond to their inquiries in minutes, not hours or days. When we have fielded all their initial inquiries and they have decided to rent your property, we will send them out a rental agreement. We will secure their initial deposit by cash, check or credit card, and then send them a customized welcome package specifically about your property and the surrounding area. Additionally, we will offer them all the amenities that our company has available, including chef services, powerboat, kayak, or canoe rentals, and even such incidental things as a crib rental, or pre-vacation grocery shopping services. That's right - we'll "super-size" your vacation home with our amenities. (We actually have guests that rent our boats before they rent a home to tie them up at). When your guests arrive at the property, we will provide them with more literature, maps and information about the area. We will also customize a "house rules and information" package for each property we list. At the end of the month in which a rental ends - we send you a check for the rent minus our commission and other charges such as cleaning or laundry. All you need to do is cash it! For this service, we take a low commission percentage of each rental booking as well as an annual $150 listing fee. On the property management side, if you would like, we will also mow the lawn, clean the property, and be on-call to make emergency repairs, etc. Fees for the property management services are additional and are competitively based on each individual property - however, we believe we have the lowest pricing around. If your property is vacant during the off-season, we charge $75 per month to manage and pay your bills, check your cottage or house weekly, and ensure that your house is operating in the most energy efficient manner possible. We are available on-call 24/7 to respond to alarm investigations at properties and currently provide this service to more than half of the properties we list. Review our Property Watch Services below...  Property Watch Services: (not available in all areas of the State) In addition to offering rental services, we also offer property watch services for the absentee homeowner. On the Water in Maine Inc. is insured as a "Residential Property Manager for Non-Owned Properties" by Tudor Insurance Co. of Keene, NH. Limit of Liability is $1,000,000. We offer the following services on a one-time basis, monthly, bi-weekly, or weekly frequency: * Visual inspection of property interior and exterior * Drain pipes and winterize homes * Non-Priority Snow Removal (to keep the driveways clear) * Inspect for water leaks * Verify door and window security * Check heat and all thermostats * Water plants * Visually inspect for evidence of pests * Check for vandalism * Retrieval of mail, newspapers, flyers * Verify lawn / plowing service being performed * Check property drainage * Run all taps and faucets, flush toilets (if water in operation) * Inspect after a storm * IMMEDIATE reporting to the home owner of any issues found Charges for these services vary. Contact us for more details and pricing. Other services we offer for additional fees are... * Build, install, and remove docks, floats, dock ramps, and moorings (We've hauled, built, launched, or installed docks for our Bayberry Cottage, Bright Pines, Midnight Loon, Crawfordsburn, On Hobbs Pond, Lazy Days, White Pines, Little Pines, Tea House, Hidden Acres, Moon Loon, Loon Call, Lakeside Lilys, and other properties over the past 5 years) 
* Organizing plowing * 24/7 Alarm Contact Person * Lawn/Garden Water * Power Washing * Packing/Storage Home Contents * Accepting Deliveries / Shipments * Airport Pick up & Drop Off * Seasonal Opening / Closing * Hot Tub Upkeep * Errands & Personal Services * Start & idle vehicles |
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