Local homeowners are attempting to cash in on the Olympics with offers to lease their homes for as much as $25,000 for less than a month in February 2010.
Private home rental postings are already popping up in listings dedicated to the 2010 Winter Olympics, indicating local residents are eager to cash in on the international exodus destined for Vancouver and the Sea to Sky Corridor.
One such listing is asking $25,000 for a four-bedroom, two-level home in downtown Squamish for the 18-day period of the Games. The property has been posted since mid-December. Attempts to contact the listing party were unsuccessful.There's a good chance houses like these will be snatched up before the main event, said Pat Kelly, president of Black Tusk Realty and the Whistler Real Estate Company, because there is a clear limit to the Sea to Sky's capacity for accommodations.
"If you try to put the Olympic family into Whistler, that doesn't leave a whole lot of extra space for anybody else," he said. "There's no question that there will be a lot of demand for space, particularly in the corridor because it allows you to go in both directions."
For now, however, ambitious homeowners and sublettors will likely have to wait until international eyes shift from this summer's games in Beijing before they're able to sort through renters for an appropriate agreement.
"There's an awful lot of owners looking to rent but I don't know that the number of people looking to rent their places out is equal to the number of people currently looking for space," said Kelly. "My guess is by August of this year we'll see a change."
Although temporarily leasing out your house could take a solid chip out of your mortgage, Kelly warns owners to carefully address damages and landlord duties in leases - and just as importantly, choose tenants wisely. Kelly advises against holding out for that big deal during the last minute rush. Hassle-free tenants are worth that extra bit of lost money.Owner and operator of Inn on the Water Sameer Kajani is of a similar mindset. He plans to select a single group to rent out the entire 23-room hotel during the Olympics.
"We're one of the small establishments, so we're pretty much trying to find the right group that will fit in with us," he said. "We want to be able to pay more attention to customer service and detail, make it more personalized."
Kajani said he can't predict how hotel rates will change in Squamish when demand starts to spill from the north and south, but owners should be careful how they react.
"I think there will be a lot of places and a lot of people who will try to up the rents and so forth but for us it's not just a two-week event," he said. "We have to be mindful of keeping a good reputation, being fair and ethical along the process."
According to Kelly, some in Park City priced themselves right out of the market for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City. Park City resembles Squamish and Whistler because of its Utah Olympic Park, which held ski jumping, Nordic combined, skeleton, luge and bobsleigh.
"One of the things that we were cautioned about from Park City was trying to be too greedy," said Kelly. "A lot of people who attend the Olympics are familiar about what's appropriate."
Kajani said he's already feeling the Olympic buzz now that competitive events are running at the Whistler Olympic Park in the Callaghan Valley. He said ski teams from B.C. and Saskatchewan are scheduled to take over the entire building for upcoming cup events.
