My wife and I are looking into investing in vacation homes, to use ourselves a couple of weeks per year, and renting them out for the rest of the year. There has to be a lot of other people looking to do the same thing. I feel one of the biggest hurdles faced in actually getting started is putting in the time to research locations where vacation/retirement interest is beginning to pick up, and real estate values are starting to accelerate upward.

We will be investing our time doing such research, so why not get paid for our time spent? How about setting up an on-line newsletter service where we share information that we've found about up-and-coming communities, current hot property deals, etc.

Would people be willing to pay for a monthly newsletter? And how about legal/licensing? Would we need to be careful that we don't cross over to being considered a real estate agent, thus requiring a license? I feel that we are only regurgitating information, so this shouldn't be a problem. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

Hi There,
I am not totally sure how your idea would shake out in the end. If it were a closed group like an investor's group it would likely not require any licensing other than business registration if it came to purchasing properties as a group. I too am looking at purchasing vacation rentals and in fact submitted an offer just this weekend. In an area I have discovered.
If you would like to correspond more on this my contact info is on my apprenticegroup site listed in my signature.
Thanks!