Where to Stay on Cape Cod: Hotels, Motels, Resorts, Inns, Vacation Rentals, and Bed & Breakfasts : Vacation Rentals
How would you like to vacation steps from a sandy beach in a property with a gourmet kitchen, flat-screen TV, high-speed Internet access, pool table, marble wet bar, tennis courts and kayak rentals?
You can add privacy to the package, too, for the property described above is not a resort, but a home in Truro–one of close to 300 rental properties handled by Duarte/Downey Real Estate.
“It’s quite the place,” says agency owner Steve Downey, who includes the waterfront home in the high end of his rental inventory. “It’s like a resort.”
While there are still plenty of smaller homes and even rustic cottages for rent on the Cape, Downey and other agents say renters are becoming increasingly demanding of higher-end homes with more amenities. Some even want services. “I have somebody who wants me to get them a cook, and I’m working on that now,” Downey says.
Mostly, he says, people want high-speed Internet, because in many cases, they bring their work with them on vacation. “The demographics have changed,” Downey observes. “Ten to 15 years ago, a lot of people just rented a cottage on the water.”
Now, people tend to want larger houses. In addition to Internet access, they want plenty of room, proximity to the water, “a hot tub if they can get it,” Downey says, and nice kitchens “because a lot of people cook.”
More and more visitors are foregoing hotels in favor of renting houses on Cape Cod–and as a result, more homeowners are putting their homes on the rental market. The inventory is large and diverse, ranging from rustic cottages to large homes with every amenity. There are even multiple homes near each other to accommodate people coming to the Cape for a reunion or wedding.
The luxury Truro home is one such property, Downey says. It’s one of three neighboring waterfront homes owned by the same person, who is in the process of constructing a fourth. Often, the homes are rented out separately–usually by multiple couples–but at times they host wedding parties, corporate retreats or reunions of families that want something a little homier than a hotel.
Downey says his weekly rental fees vary according to the property: “from $800 all the way up to $12,000 a week,” with that fancy resort-like Truro waterfront property right up there at the top.
Prices range widely according to location, size, number of bathrooms and amenities, according to Jane Booth, rental agent for Thomas Brown Real Estate in Wellfleet and Truro. “But I would say for most waterfront houses, you’re looking at $4,000 to $5,000 and up,” per week, she says. “Some range $10,000 to $12,000 a week, but they have the plasma TVs, multiple living areas, waterfront or close to waterfront.” Such properties, she observes, are generally shared. “You get a few couples who get together, and they figure if they pool their money they can get something really nice.”
And how about that quintessential Cape Cod seaside cottage? “A very quaint cottage in Beach Point, North Truro, you could get for $1,500 and up,” Booth says, “but they’re small.”
Like Downey, Booth says most people are looking for amenities, especially high-speed Internet service. “A lot of people do work on their vacation,” she notes.
At Chatham-based John C. Ricotta and Associates, Rental Department Director Sonnie Hall says high-end rentals are in demand. And many people want all the luxuries they can get to go along with that spacious waterfront house with the flat-screen TV.
“If they truly want the upper end, full service, air conditioning and cleaning, we can pretty much do it all, right down to chef services. We pretty much offer concierge services,” she says, explaining, “People come to Chatham and they want to be pampered.”
While pampering used to be the province of hotels and resorts, people can now get many of the same services in a rental. “You can get as much if not more,” Hall says. “The only thing that lacks is pools. But in Chatham where you have water on three sides, that’s not really a problem.”
Lack of air conditioning shouldn’t be a problem, either, because Chatham enjoys lovely sea breezes, yet more and more people demand air conditioning these days. As a result, many Cape homeowners have had air conditioning installed, along with upgrading their wiring to serve tech-hungry renters for whom high-speed Internet is a necessity, not a luxury.
Such upgrades have prompted increases, Hall says, but the range of prices remains wide. Hall says she can provide a one-bedroom cottage for $725 a week, a huge waterfront house for $13,500 or any number of properties in between. All told, Ricotta has about 200 rental properties.
While the Internet has made it easier to choose and book a rental sight unseen, it’s difficult to understand the market on Cape Cod without either visiting or talking to a knowledgeable person–which is one thing that makes real estate agents invaluable.
“That’s what I’m here for,” says Miki Boehk, rental agent for RE/MAX Atlantic Partners/Outer Cape Rentals in Eastham. She not only describes individual rentals in detail so there are no surprises, but she also gives first-time Cape vacationers the lay of the land.
“People will call looking for condos—they think it’s like Myrtle Beach,” she says. “There is nothing like that on the Outer Cape. I try to give them the five-minute explanation of Eastham.”
By renting a house, people can get closer to their ideal because there is such a variety, Boehk says. “People tend to want more amenities, like what they have at home.”
On the other hand, there are those less common clients who want to get back to basics and rent a small, no-frills cottage–and the Outer Cape has some of those properties, too. Often, when people find the right fit, they simply book the property year after year. “We have a lot of repeat tenants who find the perfect house, and they can sign up when they leave. We have people who’ve been coming to the same house 10, 15 years.”
Booking on the spot is one way to go, but not everyone has the ability to plan a year ahead. Cape real estate agents always urge vacationers to book early for the best selection.
At Ricotta and Associates, “November is a big booking month,” reports Hall, who works on a tiered system, offering first dibs to returning renters and then opening it up to new ones. People booking a rental for two weeks or more get first crack, and only after Jan. 1 can weekly renters make their reservations.
Jane Booth at Thomas Brown says that, while many people who are familiar with the area know to call in autumn for the best bookings, she also sees a new trend in people who wait. “Now we see a lot of last-minute bookings. We could do a third of our bookings after May 1” – if properties are still available. “People really wait,” Booth says. “Sometimes they wait for the weather report.”
Downey says summer rental bookings mostly begin in the fall and continue right through spring. “We’re busy starting Oct. 1,” he says. But good news for procrastinators: “We’re never really fully booked because we’re always getting more houses. And June and September never fully book.”
Those are two wonderful months to come to the Cape, so late birds might want to consider planning their vacations then.
These days, people dreaming of Cape vacations tend to sit at their computers and browse every property. Downey advises making some phone calls instead. With hundreds of properties listed, “sometimes it’s tedious going through every one,” he says. “The best thing is for people to call… Based on the questions we ask, we can pinpoint the property that would be right for you.”
