I have never heard of Sevierville Tennessee. However, I have a new InnFirst.com customer at Outrageous Cabin Rentals and they have a bunch of really NICE Sevierville log cabin vacation rentals.   My wife and I live just 220 miles from the Pigeon Forge / Sieverville area and hope to book us one of these units with some friends in the near future.

Here is the availability and real time booking calendar for all the units at Outrageous Cabins:

Of course, there are other Sevierville Vacation Rentals that you might want to consider, please check out all of the listings on our Sevierville Tennessee page at VacationRentalDirect.com.

I had a nice conversation with the owner of a Blowing Rock North Carolina Vacation Rental the other day, so I thought I’d feature his rental on my blog as well as tell my readers a little more about Blowing Rock North Carolina.

Waterfall Tree House United States » North Carolina » Blowing Rock   View This Listing at VacationRentalDirect.com   Beautiful Tree House like cabin near waterfall in private gated development.   Property Details Type :Cabin Pets :Yes Listing :13708 Children :No Sleeps :1 to 2 Pool :No Bed(s) :1 Bath(s) :1 Amenities Air Condition Radio Hunting near by Washers & Dryer TV Cable DVD Player

Contact: michael Kirkland        Phone: 828-719-5761

Holiday Rentals | VacationRentalDirect.com | Vacation Homes

Blowing Rock is a small town just outside of Boone in North Carolina. The town has a wonderful variety of shops, small hotels, resorts, golf courses, state parks and local activities. Most weekends it is very busy with tourists. Parking can be difficult on the weekends, especially in the summer because it’s always about 10 degrees cooler in Blowing Rock.

Expect to wait when having lunch. My wife and I prefer to visit on a weekday if possible, simply because of the crowds.

We’ve never stayed in Blowing Rock over night, however there are some super nice hotels just a few hundred yards from the downtown. You can view all of the Blowing Rock Vacation Rentals by clicking here.

There are some decent boutique clothing shops for women, and even a nice one for babies. I don’t recall a lot of options for men. There are a few touristy shops, but many are more artsy in nature. There is a Tanger Outlet Mall in Blowing Rock as well.

Overall, Blowing Rock a great place to spend an afternoon. There is a ton more to do in the area, that I have not explored. One of the things I aim to do this spring is a little bit of hiking in the area. I found this article about hiking around Bass Lake, which seems like a wonderful trek:

Trail Map for the Moses H. Come Memorial Park (includes Bass Lake Trek)

Well if it can happen to me, it can happen to anybody. The website for my vacation rental was compromised. Here’s how it all went down. Yesterday I was talking to a renter and she said, I didn’t dare click on your website listing in Google because underneath the listing it said “This Site May Harm Your Computer”.

I immediately thought the renter had some sort of malware installed on their machine. I had never heard of Google policing the Internet, although I had heard that Google would put up a warning screen before visitors visited sites like warez, cracks, etc.. which are know to harbor malware. However, I decided to check it out and sure enough, here’s what I saw:

I was flabbergasted. This is my website for the vacation rentals I own…how could it be flagged as being harmful? Thankfully Google does offer some information on what may be causing the issue and why it was flagged. I downloaded Xenu Link Sleuth and checked all the site links, which was actually a pretty good exercise as I discovered some links that had expired from blog posts and a few mistakes in the site structure. One of the items that can trigger a warning like that on the Google serps is linking to sites that are know to harbor spyware / malware. I didn’t see any of those, just the regular run of the mill links to local activities, etc..

The next option was to explore was that my site was hacked. I forwarded the issue to my developer and what he found really startled me. Turns out that script, like WordPress, which powers my blog (and this blog) have known vulnerabilities. That’s why it’s so important to keep the blog script updated. Well I didn’t and some zealous little hacker exploited one of the security holes and uploaded some obfuscated code to my site. What it did or how it harmed people, I have no idea. My developer removed the code and I then filed a re-inclusion request through Google.

Turns out my site was flagged on March 20th, about the same time my inquiries from the site dried up. I was worried that Google , with all their red tape, would not review the site for weeks, leaving me high and dry. But to their credit, the re-inclusion request seemed to trigger a respider within 24 hours and this morning the flag was removed from the SERPs.

I am a little pissed that Google kept my adwords account going strong, even though they had no problem outing the site to the world. It’s great to protect the consumers, but I think Google, if they wish to be the police of the Internet, should invest more resources and try to contact the site owner rather than publicly flogging them. But like I said, it did force me to get it fixed fast and Google was fast in getting the flag removed.

So all of you vacation rental website owners, make sure to keep your scripts up to date, and watch your Google serps. If your inquiries one day just dry up, it could be because your site has been flagged by Google and contains some junk which could harm the computers of others!

A guide to tax considerations on second homes
By Lew Sichelman
Last Update: 7:28 PM ET Dec 28, 2006

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Question: In your recent column, “The pros and cons of a second mortgage on rental home,” you neglected to mention in your response that the writer cannot take the deduction for a rental property unless they also use it as a second home. See previous Realty Q&A.
Here is the rule from the IRS (Publication 936): “You must use this home more than 14 days or more than 10 percent of the number of days during the year that the home is rented at a fair rental, whichever is longer. If you do not use the home long enough, it is considered rental property and not a second home. For information on residential rental property, see Publication 527.” Kevin Day, CharterMac Capital, New York.
Answer: I’m not sure we are on the same page. At the very least, the IRS rule you quote needs a full and better explanation. So here’s a full-blown treatise on the tax treatment of second homes:
If a second home is going to be used purely as a vacation property for you, your family and other guests, it is considered your second home. You can claim your mortgage interest and property taxes as deductions if you itemize, and add the cost of improvements to your basis. But you are not entitled to the $500,000 ($250,000 for single taxpayers) capital gains exclusion, which is limited to your personal residence, or main home. Only if you occupy a place full-time for two of the previous five years can you claim that exclusion.

It also is worth noting that you can claim only one vacation home. If you own more than that, you can deduct property taxes only on the second and subsequent vacation properties. So, if besides a place, say, in Florida, you own a ski chalet in Aspen and a hunting cabin in the Wisconsin woods, you can claim your full vacation home deductions on just one. Which one is your choice. But for the other two, only the property taxes are deductible.
If you plan to rent your vacation property, the tax rules governing rental real estate apply. However, if you plan to use the place yourself and also rent it to others, the rules are somewhat more complicated.
First, if the place is a pure rental, you are required to count as income all rents. A security deposit is not considered income if you plan to return it when the lease expires. But if you keep all or part of the deposit because the tenant leaves early or there is damage to your place, the amount withheld must be reported as income in that year.
However, if you collect the first and the last month’s rent as well as a security deposit, the extra month’s rent is considered advance rent and must be reported as income in the year it was received as opposed to the year it is due.
As a homeowner, you can add the cost of improvements to the cost basis of your principal residence but not the cost of repairs. As an owner of rental property, though, just the opposite is true. Landlords recover the cost of improvements by taking depreciation and by deducting repair costs from ordinary income. As the IRS views it, improvements add to the value of your property, prolong its useful life or adapt it to new uses. Repairs, on the other hand, is work done to your property to keep it in good operating condition that does not materially add to its value.
Other expenses that are deductible from rental income include advertising, cleaning, utilities, insurance, commissions, tax-return preparation fees, travel expenses and local transportation expenses. However, the expenses incurred to obtain financing — commissions paid to the mortgage brokers, for example, or recording fees — must be amortized over the life of the loan.
If yours is a condominium or cooperative, special rules apply. Moreover, each form of ownership is treated differently.
With condos, you can deduct depreciation, repairs, upkeep, dues, interest and taxes — as well as assessments for the care of the common areas owned jointly by you and the other owners. But you cannot claim special assessments paid to a management company for improvements. Your share of the cost of improvements is recoverable by taking depreciation.
With a co-op, you usually can deduct all the maintenance fees paid to the cooperative housing corporation. But you cannot claim a payment earmarked for a capital asset or improvement such as a parking lot or new roof. Those payments must be added to the cost basis of your stock in the corporation.
It also is worth noting that if you don’t earn a profit from your rental, you can claim your expenses only up to the amount of your rental income. Moreover, you cannot carry forward to the next year the rental expenses that exceeded your income in the previous year.
More to the point of your question, if you occupy your home for part of the year and rent it to others for all or even a portion of the rest of the year, you must divide your expenses between personal and rental use based on the number of days used for each purpose.
A day of personal use is considered any day the property is occupied by you, another person who has an interest in the property, a member of your family or anyone with whom you have an arrangement that permits you to use another dwelling. Any day the property is used for personal purposes and rented — in other words, the day you leave and your tenant arrives, or vice versa — counts as a rental day. But days in which the property is available for rent but not actually rented do not count as days of rental use.
If you use the property and rent it for less than 15 days during the year, you are not required to report your rental income. In other words, your rental income is tax free. But you can’t claim any rental expenses, either.
If you use the house more than 14 days or more than 10 percent of the days it is rented, your place is considered as “a vacation home used as a residence.” In this case, if you have a net loss — your expenses exceed your income — you cannot use the excess expense to offset income from other sources. Instead, you must carry forward your loss to the next year to be treated as rental expenses for the same property. Realize, though, that unless you turn a profit in subsequent years, you may never get to claim the excess expense.
If you use your home for less than 15 days or no more than 10 percent of the number of days it is rented, the property is considered a “vacation home used as a rental property.” Here, too, you must report and pay taxes on the income less your rental expenses. But if you have a loss, more complicated passive and hobby loss rules apply and you should seek professional counsel.
By the way, newcomers to the rental business are allowed to write-off their start-up expenses. Among other things, these include the cost to investigate potential real estate markets, fees paid for various professional services (other than those paid to actually purchase a property) and even attending classes or real estate seminars.
These would be normal operating costs for an ongoing business, but they are considered start-up expenses when they are incurred before the business begins. But you can deduct no more than $5,000 in your first year of business. Anything over that amount must be claimed in equal amounts over the next 15 years.
You also are allowed to deduct legitimate expenses — travel, entertainment and other “fun” expenses don’t count — as start-up expenses up to the day you put the place in service; that is, the day you offer it for rent as opposed to the first day on which it is actually rented.
If you already own rental property, these are considered as costs incurred to expand your business and must be claimed as business operating expenses, not start-up expenses. And if you should change your mind and decide not to rent your new vacation-home digs, all bets are off. These costs become personal costs and are not deductible.
The above is intended solely as general guidelines and should not be construed as legal advice. Be sure to consult professional tax counsel before making any decision to purchase a second residence based either solely or in part on the tax aspects of homeownership.