Can I use my own vacation rental?

Updated November 2026

The short answer

It is your house. Any manager who makes you feel otherwise has the relationship backwards. The job of a good agreement is to make owner use predictable, for you and for the calendar, so that the week your family wants is not booked by a guest before anyone asked you.

How owner weeks should be set

In writing, before the calendar opens to guests. Ours are set with you at onboarding: the weeks you know you want (Thanksgiving, the Fourth, a ski week in February) go on the calendar first and are blocked before a single guest can see the dates. After that, you can add time whenever the calendar is open, and we ask for as much notice as you can give, because a date that is open today may be booked tomorrow.

Two things to avoid in any agreement. First, a flat cap ("owner may use the property up to 14 nights per year") with no say over which nights; the cap is not the problem, the lack of a mechanism is. Second, a blanket ban on owner use during "peak season" as defined by the manager. If you want the Fourth of July, you should be able to have the Fourth of July. You should also know what it costs.

What a blocked week costs

Every night you block is a night the house does not earn, and the nights are not worth the same. A mountain home's year is concentrated: in Beech Mountain, December and January alone carry a large share of the year's revenue; in Blowing Rock it is July and October; around Lake Norman it is June and July. A week in the softest month costs a fraction of a week in the strongest one.

The way to think about it: take the home's annual revenue, look at the monthly shape on your revenue check, and price the week you are blocking at its share. A July week in a Blowing Rock home that earns $77,000 a year is a different decision from an April week in the same house. Neither is wrong. Both should be made with the number in front of you.

Most of our owners end up blocking the two or three weeks they will really use and leaving the rest open, because an open peak week that books is money and an open peak week that is blocked "just in case" is not.

The rules around owner stays

• Cleaning. A guest pays the cleaning fee for their stay. After an owner stay, someone still has to clean before the next guest, and that cleaning is yours. We schedule it and it is itemized on your statement.
• Supplies and wear. The house is stocked for guests. If your family goes through the firewood and the coffee, that is normal; we just restock before the next check-in.
• Friends and family at a discount. If you want to let someone stay for free or at a reduced rate, tell us and we block it as an owner stay. Do not hand out the lock code around the calendar; it breaks the cleaning schedule and the damage protection.
• Guest rules apply to you, too. Towns with renter age minimums or parking limits (Boone requires renters to be 21 or older and one parking space per bedroom) apply to your guests regardless of who booked.

Owner use and the tax picture

Personal use of a rental property affects how the property is treated for federal income tax, including how expenses are allocated. We are not tax advisers and this is not tax advice; the point is to keep a record of owner nights, which your statement does, and to give it to your accountant.

Our policy

Family weeks are set with you, in writing, before we open the calendar. You can add time any time the calendar is open. We show you what a week is likely to cost in revenue before you block it, so the decision is yours and informed. Post-stay cleaning is scheduled by us and itemized. That is the whole policy; it fits on a card because the rest is judgment, and judgment is what you are paying an owner-run company for.

More on how the fee and the terms work on the home page, and on what else to read in an agreement in Contract terms to read first.

See what your home should earn

Put in your address and you will see your market range in about a minute, no phone number needed. Or call or text (828) 478-8024 and an owner of the company answers.