When you have a beautiful vacation retreat in Spain you have the potential to earn a large amount of money from renting it out to the thousands of tourists who visit the country every year. You can recoup some of your investment and have the advantage of knowing that your home is being maintained instead of being locked and kept empty for most of the year. Furthermore, the rent that people pay help cover maintenance costs so you don’t have to make any out of pocket expenses.

But being a landlord entails more than just sitting there waiting for the checks to come in. You have to plan well and to make the necessary precautions so that you only invite the most reliable people to manage your home, and allow only the most careful tourists to enter your doors.

You also have to be clear about what you want. If you rent out your property you need to set boundaries about what’s acceptable or not. This can be as straightforward as stating what kind of rules you want to implement, such as no smoking, or no children, or no pets. But aside from this you have to consider how much you want to earn from your home. The peak times of renting are the tourist season but of course this means that your home won’t be available to you during those months. You will have to visit when the home is vacant. You should also consider the price range. Are you interested in only reaping enough income to cover costs or do you wish to maximise the income to its full capacity?

Another thing you should look at is the kind of people you will choose to watch over your property while you are away. Your caretaker should be someone you really trust and who is meticulous about the requirements of keeping the house neat and in good condition. Renters will want their home to be comfortable and the price of your rent is really affected by how well your caretaker makes the place presentable. Furthermore the caretaker has to be friendly an should be able to speak good English. It is probably advisable to hire a local couple, the husband tending to the garden and other manual labor, while the wife doubles as a laundry woman and cook for the visitors. You should make sure that the couple also has the people skills to make everyone feel welcome, while still having the sensitivity to respect the renter’s privacy and to make themselves as unobstrusive as possible.