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Just How Many Overnight Rentals Are There?

Quick Quiz for you. No prizes for the correct answer, just bragging rights. In the Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and Sevierville areas how many rental cabins, chalets, & condos are there?

A: 4,000 - 6,000
B: 6,000 - 8,000
C: 8,000 - 10,000
D: 10,000+
E: Nobody really knows how many

The overnight rental industry in Sevier County began in the early 1960's when the first chalets and log cabins were built for visitors to the relatively newly created Great Smoky Mountain National Park. Chalets and cabins made a lot of sense and any property that had a decent view would rent well at that time. Even some that looked remarkably like army barracks were quite successful. As years went by many more cabins, chalets, and condos were built here in the Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, and surrounding communties and the demand for this sort of real estate was always sufficient to absorb the increased supply. Nearly 50 years later we are still building, selling, and renting cabins and chalets here in the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee but the bar has certainly been raised. To have a good rental property you need lots of amenities including a view, a hottub, a pool table and/or other games like foosball, and even more. In the last few years we have seen properties with indoor pools and theatre rooms and incredible luxury. None of this comes cheap and it is possible to spend an immense amount of money to get a truly exceptional property. Still, if you have the right set of amenties you can rent a cabin or chalet here for 200+ nights a year and some folks still generate 250 nights a year although this is considerably more difficult than it used to be.

And now back to our quiz. If you answered D or E you are correct. According to the Sevier County Electric System (SCES) which codes vacation rental properties differently from other residential homes, we currently have 10,626 active overnight rental properties within their service area which includes most, but not all, of Sevier County. The SCES service area does include the Townsend community which is actually in Blount County but they don't cover Cosby and the adjoining areas at the southeast corner of the county. The huge increase in the number of rental cabins, chalets, and condos has finally outstripped demand for these units. Unless your property has all of the amenities and some other characteristics it is hard to make a rental home here pay for itself in our current market.

What does it take to make a Smoky Mountain rental property pay for itself? Some of the keys are listed here:

• A bold year round mountain view.
• A very photogenic property that will display well on the internet.
• An efficient and competitive rental company that will market the property effectively.
• A full set of amenities and something special that makes the house stand out from the ever growing crowd.

We are starting a new consulting business that will provide advice to owners and prospective buyers of vacation rental properties here. A future post will provide more information about the services we will offer. Suffice it to say that if we can't increase your property's rentals significantly our advice will be offered without charge through a money back guarantee program. Stay tuned - This will be of interest to any owner of a vacation rental property here in the Smokies!