Santa Rosa Beach, FL · 30A
We show you the whole year before you sign anything: the seasonal curve, every deduction, and the number you actually keep. The gross figure is the one that sells management contracts, and it is not the one you live on.
A four-bed, five minutes from the water
The gap is $42,474 — our fee, the platforms’ cut, consumables, a maintenance reserve and coastal insurance. Every one of them is listed on this page, with the arithmetic showing.
4.9from 2,140 guest reviews
Before you sign with anybody
Distance from the water is the single biggest thing deciding a nightly rate on this coast — bigger than the kitchen, bigger than the reviews. A gulf-front home and the identical house four rows back are not in the same market.
Walking down to the water…
The baseline. Bikes in the garage, boardwalk at the end of the street.
Twelve months, as this coast actually books
172 nights · 24.6 weeks · busiest is Jul
Bar height is that month’s rental revenue; the figure under it is occupancy. July is close to full at $961 a night. January is not, at $384. Any projection with an even spread across the year was not built on this coast.
Where it goes
What lands in your account
$79,056
a year, from a 4-bed five-minute walk home
That is 65% of the gross figure a competitor would quote you. If somebody has shown you a much bigger number, it is almost certainly this one before the deductions — ask them to send it again with the stack on the left filled in.
A projection from real 30A market rates and a normal seasonal curve. Your actual year depends on the home, its reviews and how early the calendar opens — the honest range is about 15 per cent either side of this.
The portfolio
Nightly rates move with the season — the low figure is a shoulder week, the high one a week in July. Book any of them direct and you skip the platform’s 14% service fee.
Rates are worked out from the same market data as the projection above, not typed in separately — which is why the two always agree.
No consultation required
Our fee is 22 per cent of gross rental revenue for full management and 16 per cent for co-hosting. Guests pay 11 per cent tax on top — 6 per cent Florida sales tax and 5 per cent Walton County tourist development tax — which we collect and remit for you. That is the guest's money, not a deduction from yours, and anyone showing it as a cost to you has their arithmetic wrong.
Guests pay 11% tax on top of the nightly rate — 6% Florida sales tax and 5% Walton County tourist development tax. We collect it and file it. It was never your money, so it is not a deduction from your income, whatever anybody else’s projection shows.
How it works
Most of it is settled before you sign anything, which is why an owner can hand over a property and stop thinking about it.
On this page. Bedrooms, where you sit relative to the water, and the whole twelve months appears with every deduction in it.
Free. Send the address and last year's statement if you have one, and we rebuild it with your real occupancy rather than a market average.
An hour on site. What the photographs are missing, what guests will complain about, and the two or three things worth spending money on before May.
Photography and listing build at our cost, dynamic pricing across the platforms and our direct site, and your blocked weeks in before anything goes live.
Monthly, on the 12th. Every booking, every deduction, every invoice attached, and the tourist tax return filed. No line on it will need a phone call to explain.
What you can hold us to
Our estimate shows the guest's total, the taxes we remit, our fee, the channel's cut, cleaning, supplies and maintenance — and then your number. If a competitor quotes you a figure twice ours, ask them which of those they have taken out.
One manager per ten homes. Most of the coast runs three hundred units on the same staffing, which is why guests wait six hours for a key code in July. We would rather turn owners away than dilute it.
Cleaning, laundry, pool service, maintenance, linen. You pay the invoice as written, we add nothing, and every one is attached to the statement.
What we do
Full management, leasing only, or just an honest number for what your property should let for. Press a card and it goes into the form with the fee attached.
A projection from real 30A market rates and a normal seasonal curve. Your actual year depends on the home, its reviews and how early the calendar opens — the honest range is about 15 per cent either side of this.
Free, and genuinely free
Send the address and last year's statement if you have one. We rebuild the projection with your real occupancy and rates, and tell you plainly whether you are leaving money on the table or already doing well.
Why owners stay
Six things we do differently, and every one of them came from an owner telling us what the last firm did.
Guest total, taxes out, fee out, channel out, cleaning, supplies, maintenance, insurance — and then your number. Run it yourself on this page before you speak to anybody.
The ratio is the product. It is why a guest in July waits ten minutes rather than six hours, and guest reviews are what set next year's rate.
The 22 per cent. Not on cleaning, not on maintenance, not on linen, not on a referral to a pool company. Every invoice reaches you as written.
It decides more of your rate than anything you can renovate. We will tell you where your home really sits in that ladder, including when the answer is disappointing.
Twelve-month agreement, sixty days' notice, no exit fee and no clause that keeps your calendar hostage. If the numbers are good you will not need it.
To homes we cannot let well, to owners whose expectations we cannot meet, and to the thirty-first house.
Both sides
An owner wants the money to make sense. A guest wants the door to open. Neither should have to ring the office to find out what is happening.
Owners
Guests
Straight about scope
We do
We don’t
What people say
My old company quoted a gross figure that was thirty per cent above what I actually banked. Dune Lake sent a projection with every deduction listed and then beat it. That is the whole story.
They looked at my statements and told me I was already doing well and did not need them. Six months later I moved to them anyway.
Air conditioning failed on a Sunday afternoon in July with four kids in the house. Somebody answered in ten minutes and a unit was running again before dinner.
I wanted to keep my own listing and they did not try to talk me out of it. Sixteen per cent, they do the guests and the turnovers, and I still set my own prices.
Straight answers
Because ours is net and theirs is almost certainly gross. A gross figure has not had the management fee, the channel's cut, cleaning, supplies or maintenance taken out of it, and on this coast that is thirty to thirty-five per cent of the total. Ask any company to show you the same year with every deduction listed and compare those two numbers instead.
No, and it is worth being clear about. Guests pay 11 per cent on top of the nightly rate — 6 per cent Florida sales tax and 5 per cent Walton County tourist development tax. We collect it and remit it. It never belonged to you, so it is not a deduction from your income, and a projection that shows it as one is understating your net by eleven per cent.
$185 to $340 depending on the size of the home, and no. It is charged to the guest as a cleaning fee at what it costs us, and you see the invoice. We make our money on the 22 per cent and nowhere else — not on cleaning, not on maintenance, not on linen.
Twenty-three to twenty-five in a normal year, concentrated between March and October. July is close to full and January is close to empty, and any projection showing an even spread across the year has been built by somebody who has not worked this coast.
More than anything else. A gulf-front home takes roughly twice the nightly rate of the identical house a five-minute walk back, and the gap widens in peak weeks. It also cuts both ways: north of 30A you buy far more house for the money, and the yield on what you paid is often better.
Yes, and most owners do. Block the weeks you want in the calendar and we work around them. We will tell you honestly what a peak July week costs you to keep — usually a great deal — and then we will block it without arguing.
We have a written plan and you get a copy: when we stop taking bookings, when we move guests, how refunds work, who boards up and in what order. Insurance on the coast is the largest single line in your costs and it is in the projection on this page, not hidden.
Because the number of homes per person is the thing that decides whether a guest waits ten minutes or six hours in July, and guest reviews decide next year's rate. Most of the coast is run at three hundred units on the same staffing. We would rather turn an owner away than become that.
Equal Housing Opportunity
Equal Housing Opportunity. We comply with the Fair Housing Act and all applicable Florida and Walton County laws, and with the Americans with Disabilities Act where it applies to our properties.
The same criteria are applied to every applicant: credit, income, employment, rental history and a background check. We do not discuss who lives in a building or a neighbourhood, and we never ask about family, religion, nationality or disability. An assistance or service animal is always accommodated, is never charged for, and is not a pet.
This site is built to WCAG 2.2 AA — keyboard navigable throughout, with visible focus, sufficient contrast and text alternatives. If anything here is hard to use, tell us and we will fix it: owners@dunelakestays.com