A vacation rental manager that can read minds? This homeowner found one.

If Dottie G. is anything, she’s thorough.

Even before she and her husband found their second home near Bear Lake, Utah, she’d studied her local vacation rental management options.

“I wanted to know: What are guests going to want? What are they going to need? I’m a researcher, so I wanted their experience to be wonderful,” she says.

“I felt working with Vacasa was going to be better overall. I thought, ‘This is a big company—they know what they’re doing. They have it down to a science.’”

Dottie had done her homework. But what she didn’t anticipate was a local team whose attention to detail rivaled her own.

Teeing off

Dottie and her family had no experience with vacation rentals before partnering with Vacasa. But when she and her husband were looking for an investment, they started thinking about buying a property and hosting guests to offset costs and generate revenue. So, they began searching for real estate close to their home—and her heart.

“My grandparents had property up near Bear Lake and we went there all the time,” she says. “Ironically, we’re not really big ‘lake people,’ even though we bought a home at Bear Lake. But we love to golf.”

When their Realtor found them the perfect property with sweeping views of Sweetwater Golf Course, they knew they had to jump on the five-bedroom, four-bathroom home. Dottie started a conversation with her local Vacasa representative before the papers were even signed.

“We asked a lot of questions: How do things work? What happens if...? He had answers to all my questions, and he didn't have to say, ‘Oh, I'll get back to you in two weeks on that,’” she recalls.

Confident in their choice, they listed their home with Vacasa.

Getting into the game

Dottie believed Vacasa could deliver on their promises. “In the very beginning, we knew that they were going to take care of everything for us,” she says.

As time went on, she began to think more critically about what hospitality in her home looked like—how things were fixed and what items were included in the home, and even specific bedding requests for specific clients. She felt these requests were very particular to her home and her preferences.

So it surprised Dottie that her local team—led by assistant manager Terri—cared as deeply about the details as she did.

“A couple months ago, they put labels on all my cabinets to show what’s inside,” Dottie says. “I hadn’t said anything to Terri, but I kept thinking, ‘Oh, I wish it was all labeled.’ I just didn't have time. One day, I go and it’s done. And I thought, ‘It’s like they read my mind!’”

“Taking charge of my home and still letting me have that ‘hovering’ control has created trust,” she continues. “I know that I can count on Vacasa to follow through with what I ask, that it's going to be done right and quickly, and that Terri will tell me it's done.”

According to Dottie, a trustworthy team is crucial when hosting guests you don’t know.

“As a homeowner, my biggest concern is that people renting won’t take care of the home like you would want them to,” she says. “I love that if something does get broken, I know Vacasa would be there to help us make it right.”

A hole in one

But trust requires more than thoughtful gestures and consistent follow-through. Trust begins and ends with outstanding communication—and Dottie loves that Vacasa gives her tons of ways to keep tabs on her home.

“[If I ask a question], Terri always gets back to me pretty much within hours almost every time, same day… She's always really kind and responsive,” she says.

“We get emails from Terri every so often that say what’s going on at the home, like if there’s a deep cleaning coming up,” she continues. “There are even things that I hadn’t thought about before that Vacasa does. It’s great that they ask if I’d like things like driveway snow removal.”

Beyond Terri’s periodic bulletins and regular correspondence, Dottie enjoys reviewing her property’s year-over-year performance in her Vacasa owner account and getting email notifications whenever her home receives a new booking. Her owner account also allows her to communicate with her team around updates and maintenance work at her home.

“I like to see exactly what’s going on, but I don’t want to be in the middle of it,” she says.

“I don’t have to worry. I don’t get phone calls from guests saying, ‘Hey, our water heater is not working.’ Vacasa just takes care of it all.”

Dottie’s owner account shows her current year-over-year earnings reports, too—and she loves watching Vacasa grow her home’s business in real time.

“I didn't expect many bookings in our first year because we started renting in September, which is the end of the season,” she admits. “But we ended up having all the big holidays rented out, which I totally attribute to Vacasa’s marketing. I don't think there's any way it would have been rented out without Vacasa.”

“Then last year, in our first summer, it was completely booked. We've even had bookings these past winter months, which I don't feel is typical,” she continues. “I didn't expect any rentals between October and April. I really think it's Vacasa's marketing push.”

And because Vacasa has made renting their home in Bear Lake so seamless, Dottie and her husband have even been thinking of investing again.

“It sounds funny, but I want to buy more properties just so Vacasa can take care of them because I know how wonderful it’s been,” she says.

With her Bear Lake home performing well with strong bookings and home care, Dottie feels confident that her meticulous approach to finding the perfect manager for their investment has paid off.

“Vacasa wants to be successful—and they want me to be successful as a homeowner. So, let’s do this together.” ⧫