How to Start a Horse Property Business

Finding a suitable property that will include facilities for a horse, or horses, can be a difficult task. Learn how to help these horse-home hunters by starting a horse property business!

Most people are likely familiar with how difficult it can be to locate a home to rent, or lease, that will allow pets. Now imagine if that family pet is a horse!

Finding a suitable dwelling that will include facilities for a horse, or horses, can be an almost insurmountable task! Some equine owners virtually give up on making a move at all because it takes so much work for them to find a suitable place! This is where you come in!

Do you have experience in working with real estate? Even if you do not, with general research experience under your belt, you likely have the skills needed to create an online directory that will help equestrians find the homes that they are searching for.
You can start a website that lists homes available to rent, or lease, that are located in close vicinity to horse stables, or that has a stable and sufficient room for housing and exercising a horse on the property.

Your job would be similar to a real estate agent, in that you would need to familiarize yourself with the many properties in your area (or your state, depending on what you would like your scope to include). However, you will likely not have nearly the competition that a regular real estate agent would have since you will be serving a niche market.

You should organize your online directory with searchable databases by location (county, state, or city) and type of horse housing available. You would likely also want to make your site searchable by square footage and acres available and, of course, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms that each residence has.

No one wants to scroll through hundreds of listings for hours just looking for one type of location. After all, your website should be taking the work out of things to make the search easier for your equestrian customers!

There are a few different ways to generate a profit through a directory like this. One way would be to sell subscriptions for people to access your directory or perhaps by running advertisements related to horses or stabling on your site.

Another way would be to charge a percentage of the total property-selling price while serving as an authorized real estate agent. You will need to check for any applicable laws pertaining to being a legal real estate agent in your area.

For owners relocating over long distances, you may want to include a directory of temporary horse stables that they can take advantage of while traveling and getting their new home established.

If you are listing homes that are within a close vicinity to a large stable where their horses could reside, you should definitely include a great deal of information on the actual stable and any special services that they might offer. You should also include information on local trails and areas that allow horse riding.

For instance, some beaches are zoned to allow horseback riding and others do not allow animals of any kind. Some communities are especially welcoming to equestrians and have many signs alerting vehicles that they will need to share the road safely with people on horseback.

If you decide to specialize in real estate just within your state of residence, you can spend time driving around and scouting out possible riding locations. Are there signs posted? Visit different communities and ask around. Networking with park rangers and other park staff is a great way to find out about these kinds of locations.

Be sure to also run searches online to find references to local spots that people may chat about in chat rooms, newsgroups, and personal blogs. Sometimes these are the best places that no one in the general public has heard about yet and your readers will be so grateful to be getting the inside scoop.

Since most horses spend an average of 22 hours a day in their stable, you will want to be sure to include crisp property photos of both the main residence and stable, or barn, which will encourage your customers to investigate the real estate offering further. Be sure to include photos of particularly scenic locations that the horse owner would enjoy exercising their beloved animal as well as photos of happy people enjoying their horses. This will make the locations that you are providing information on seem even more inviting.

This kind of visual information will also be another helpful piece of information to your clients when it comes to choosing their next residence. You may want to also include helpful tips for people moving with animals as well! The more information you can provide them, the better!

Your directory would definitely be benefitted by investing the time and energy needed to network with local real estate agents and their offices. These kinds of contacts can be an invaluable resource for getting information on a property before it is widely known about, or advertised to the general-public. Usually a real estate agency, or agent, should be willing to give you the heads-up on such properties if you agree to promote their services or if you make some other mutually beneficial agreement.

Remember that people also rent properties for summer and winter vacations. Be sure to include these sorts of vacation properties in your database as well. Especially since these can be rented repeatedly and could become a permanent listing for your site.

After a customer has used your site, invite comments on both improving the site and, more important, what their renting or buying experience for their property was like.

Also, be sure to ask for suggestions of horse friendly parks and businesses in their chosen neighborhoods that they have visited and really liked. This is the kind of inside information that could really help enrich the scope of information you can offer to later visitors to your site!

Creating and maintaining such a horse property directory can be fun and rewarding. So dive in and get started on this unique ‘business idea’ today!