More and more people are discovering the advantage of renting vacation property directly from the owner instead of booking the same condo through a management company.

During the last 5 years the number of properties being advertised on the internet directly from owner has exploded to well over 50,000.

People are discovering that they can save significant money by renting a condo directly from the owner. The reason why is simple. When a person rents a condo through a management company it is not unusual for 50% (yes, 50%!) of the fee to stay with the management company.

When a person rents directly from an owner the owner gets to keep 100% of the rent. Therefore, owners can discount their properties quite a bit and still make significantly more money then if they used a management company.

For example, let's say you wanted to get a 2 bedroom condo in Keystone Colorado for 7 days over Christmas. Going to the Keystone website, we found the total price for a two bedroom condo that is walking distance to the lifts quoted at a total of $3,759.92.

Renting directly from owner, we found identical condos for around $2,600. You would save well over $1,000 just by renting directly from the owner. In fact, you might save even more by 'negotiating with the owner', something you can never do with a management company.

Another advantage to renting directly from the owner is that many owners know how to obtain discounts to the local attractions. For example, we found an owner who could sell us a 4-day lift pass at Copper Mountain (Colorado) ski resort for $59. That is under $15 per day of skiing. Purchasing 32 tickets (family of 4 skiing for 8 days) directly from the resort would cost over $2,300, whereas purchasing 8 of the 4-day discount passes would only cost $472. That is an additional $1,800 in savings. So, by renting directly from the owner your total savings is now close to $3,000!

We found similar savings in the Orlando, Florida area (Disney World) and in Hawaii (Waikiki, Maui, Big Island, etc.).

Renting directly from owner also allows you to see exactly what condo you are getting. Most owner websites have detailed pictures of their condos.

When you rent from a management company you usually do not know what condo you are going to get. All you know is the area and perhaps the name of the building the condo is in.

Many owners have an online calendar so it is easy to see if the dates you want are available and also how popular the condo is with other people. If the calendar shows lots of activity then that is a good sign the owner is providing a good value.

If you are an owner and currently using a management company to rent it out, you may want to consider renting it out on your own. It does take more time than using a management company, however, as thousands of other owners have discovered, it can be time well spent. Before you do it, you might be well advised to talk to other owners who are doing it and if possible join (or form) a referral network of other owners. Referral networks can be very powerful tools in helping you stay in touch with other owners. They are especially important if you don't live in the same area as your rental property is in.

Finding other owners is very easy. All you need to do is find a site where owners advertise (there are lots of them out there) and send the owner a message or give him/her a call (phone numbers are also published with the listings).