Meet Barrett Thrasher & Roger Pippin

Today we’d like to introduce you to Barrett Thrasher & Roger Pippin.

Barrett & Roger, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My name is Barrett, my husband’s name is Roger, and we are the owners and operators of Beats Working Vacation Rentals. We are a married couple who started with a small dream of living and working near the beach. After years of working in hospitality via restaurants, hotels, and resorts, the opportunity to manage a home in New Orleans fell into our laps in 2014. Within a year of starting our business, Beats Working Vacation Rentals was managing 25 homes in the city of New Orleans.

Being a Bama girl, I brought Roger on a family vacation to beautiful Gulf Shores, Alabama, where I’d spent a lot of time during my childhood. Roger had never experienced anything like Gulf Shores, not either in his home state of Louisiana or out West, where he still has a family. A man of many talents—and now a licensed Alabama real estate salesperson—Roger is also a retired Disaster Responder, which comes in handy when managing vacation rentals in remote mountain locations and hurricane-prone coastal areas.

On this first trip, Roger planted the seed of moving to the Fort Morgan area of Gulf Shores to expand our vacation rental business. Of course, we had a few selfish reasons too — who doesn’t want to live in a coastal paradise? By 2018, we were managing homes both in New Orleans and along the Emerald Coast. Between 2020 and 2022, to return to some of Roger’s Western roots, Beats Working Vacation Rentals expanded to Angel Fire, New Mexico, and Victor, Colorado, as two of our current Emerald Coast homeowners desired to purchase additional rentals in the Rocky Mountains—on the condition that we would manage the homes.

In the fall of 2022, we stayed in a stunning Airbnb in the mountains of Murphy, North Carolina while attending a friend’s wedding. One thing led to another, and we now manage this same beautiful mountaintop home in the Smoky Mountains—in addition to four more listings that we added to our Smokies rental program over the following six months.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
We are sad to say that we no longer manage rentals in New Orleans, Louisiana—the O.G. home of Beats Working Vacation Rentals! Due to stringent COVID regulations during 2020 and beyond, plus the more recent short-term rental regulations that the city has put in place, it is no longer feasible for us to manage any homes in New Orleans.

Despite our wide geographic range, Beats Working Vacation Rentals has a small, trusted staff who works hard because they are paid a living wage and given the tools they need to succeed. We also have a crew of specialists and subcontractors who partner with us in each state. We take great care of one another to take great care of our client’s homes and guests.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Our boutique full-service vacation rental business is based on establishing trust and clear communication between us and our homeowners, guests, staff, and subcontractors. Our unique business model is built on guaranteeing that each homeowner relies on one person as a single point of contact.

Larger companies have someone dedicated to communicating with guests, someone else committed to managing cleaners, and someone else assigned to speak with homeowners. This compartmentalized approach leads to critical information being lost, for there are too many proverbial hands in the pot. Instead, Beats Working Vacation Rentals focuses on a streamlined business model, allowing us to devote hands-on, personal attention to every detail. This practice ensures a seamless experience for all parties involved.

Our hardworking staff cares about each home, taking the time to treat each home as if it were their own. We work hard to keep your rental safe, stocked, and clean. We pay our small staff 300% more than the big-box companies, which means they always go the extra mile for our us and our homeowners.

Enlisting Beats Working Vacation Rentals to manage your home means no more fielding guests’ calls, spending your free time cleaning, or tracking reservations on multiple websites. It means no more scheduling for pest control, lawn care, or air conditioning maintenance. It also means no more scrambling to take care of needed repairs or dealing with pesky internet service hiccups. Our homeowners can rest assured that we will always go to bat for them and look out for their best interests.

We create eye-catching, professionally photographed listings for each home, marketing the vacation rentals on Airbnb, Vrbo, and the Beats Working Vacation Rentals website. Our listings’ glowing reviews speak for themselves, but over the years, we have found that our best marketing tools are our guests. To date, 30% of our guests are repeat clients, 30% are referrals, and 40% are new visitors.

These days, so many aspects of everyday life, including planning a vacation or renting out your home, are handled anonymously by apps. While Airbnb and Vrbo are valuable tools, Beats Working Vacation Rentals also offers our personal touch and consistent communication to assist guests and homeowners alike. We do not rely on auto-generated replies to clients or guests. Instead, we communicate personally and thoughtfully to ensure a smooth, memorable experience for everyone.

So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
Beats Working Vacation Rentals is a boutique short-term rental property management and cleaning company. We currently offer vacation homes on the Emerald Coast’s sugar sand beaches of Alabama, The Enchanted Circle (also known as Angel Fire, New Mexico, and its surrounds), and Victor, Colorado, which is nestled in the southern Rocky Mountains. Our focus is on providing guests with tailored hospitality with a hands-on approach.

Interested in having Beats Working Vacation Rentals manage your vacation home? Please contact us for more details about our rental management program.

Interested in purchasing a lot or existing home in the Gulf Shores, Alabama area? Please reach out to Roger Pippin, our licensed Alabama real estate agent working with Bayou Real Estate Corporation.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.beatsworkingvacationrentals.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/beatsworkingvacationrentals/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/beatsworkingvacationrentals

Image Credits
www.broadcastprophoto.com, www.appalachianweddingphotography.com, and www.tonythagard.com