Advertise on podcast: The Smoky Mountain Vacation Rental Forum

This week Tom sits down with Jack Zoppa of Haven Vacation Rentals, a friend and fellow Smokies operator he calls a pioneer and a renegade of sorts. This conversation kicks off a new series of talks with other operators in the market, built around one idea: raising the bar together. Jack was born and raised in East Tennessee, grew up camping in the Smokies, and spent time working in a church before partnering with a friend who had started Haven in Knoxville. Today he helps run Haven and a cleaning company launched last year, and he's part of Stayd, a bootstrapped collective of seven operators across the Southeast, Colorado, and Texas that shares technology, hiring, and accounting tools while every brand stays locally funded, led, and owned. Tom and Jack talk candidly about the state of the Smoky Mountain market: inventory that has nearly doubled since Haven arrived, investors who bought for the write-off and are now stuck, the glut of four-bedroom pool cabins with no view, and why $140,000 revenue projections deserve a hard second look. They get into what professionalism really means when owners trust you with a million dollar asset, why people have become the highest leverage investment in a growing company, and how AI can remove operational friction, including an agent that triages issues cleaners report and schedules maintenance routes, so teams can spend more time on hospitality. They also get into something bigger: why neither believes the Smokies is a zero sum game. With roughly 20,000 listings and homes that change hands over time, Tom and Jack make the case for cooperation over competition, for asking other operators for help, and for being honest with owners, even when that means recommending they sell. Jack doesn't claim a secret sauce. He says Haven does the basics consistently and lets that compound. Tom and Jack close with a look ten years out, Jack's hope that investors can cash flow again so managers can focus on hospitality, and an open invitation to every operator in the market to join them for a big breakfast. Details to come. Resources mentioned: Haven Vacation Rentals (havenvacationrentals.com), Stayd (stayd.co), and Jack on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackathaven/). A conversation for operators who want to do this business better together, and for owners who want a realistic picture of the market they're investing in.

This week Tom steps away from interviews again for another open letter, this time addressed directly to owners. Most people don't leave their management company because the numbers went bad. They leave because they stopped trusting what they were being told, and this episode is about learning to tell the difference between a hard season and a relationship that's quietly already over. Tom walks through four patterns owners keep describing to him: chasing down their own invoices and answers instead of being kept informed, discovering a rate cut on a statement instead of hearing about it in a phone call beforehand, watching a company they once felt personally known by turn into a portal and a ticket number, and doing more of the actual coordinating themselves while still paying a full commission. None of it requires anyone to be dishonest. The math just stops matching the effort. But this isn't a permission slip to panic or a breakup script. Tom offers a short gut-check, five questions any owner can bring to their current manager before assuming they need a new one, built to separate a rough quarter from a relationship that's genuinely run its course. A conversation for any owner who's been quietly wondering whether it's them, their manager, or just a hard season, and a reminder that there's still a real difference between the three.

This week Tom steps away from interviews to talk through a phone call that's been keeping him up at night. A couple from the Bay Area, who had never once set foot in the Smoky Mountains, put a contract on a nearly million dollar spec home based on a realtor's promise of $140,000 a year in minimum revenue. They were closing in weeks. They had no plans to visit before then. Tom walks through the math nobody puts in the brochure: OTA fees, management commissions, cleaning costs, and maintenance, and shows how a "worst case" projection of $140,000 can realistically shrink to a net closer to $45,000 to $50,000. He breaks down why this particular home, one of twenty nearly identical spec houses on a single street with no view, a four foot deep balcony, and a basement pool, was never positioned to perform the way it was pitched, and why an oversaturated market with 25,000 competing properties punishes homes that don't stand out. Tom shares the questions every out of state buyer should be asking before they sign anything, walks through a cautionary tale of another family who invested $120,000 more into a home in its first year alone, and recounts his own attempt to offer the Bay Area couple an independent walkthrough, an offer they declined. It's a candid, at times frustrated look at what happens when buyers, realtors, and builders treat a vacation rental purchase like a guaranteed return instead of a real business with real risk. A conversation for anyone considering an investment property in the Smokies, and a warning for anyone tempted to buy one without ever seeing it.

This week Tom talks with Brooke Pfautz, founder and CEO of Vintory, whose work speaks to two very different audiences at once: the individual homeowner trying to make a smart decision about their property, and the operator, co-host, or management company trying to grow the right way. It's a rare vantage point, built over nearly two decades in the short-term rental industry. Brooke's path started in mortgage banking before he stumbled into vacation rentals, founding Vantage Resort Realty in Ocean City, Maryland and growing it from zero to 500 properties in five years. From there he moved into purpose-built vacation homes in Orlando, then software, before launching Vintory seven and a half years ago to solve one of the industry's biggest pain points: growing inventory. Tom and Brooke get into what actually separates great rental programs from commodity ones: the real math behind commission structures (and why "what's your commission" is the wrong first question for a homeowner to ask), the four things every owner is really optimizing for, and why differentiation, not sameness, is the only way to avoid a race to the bottom. The conversation turns candid when Brooke shares the story behind Vintory AI: eighteen months ago, his own team told him AI was going to make Vintory obsolete, so instead of protecting the business he built, he assembled a small internal team with a simple mandate: build something good enough to put Vintory out of business first. It's a bold bet on staying ahead of disruption instead of getting caught by it, and a conversation about what legacy companies and brand-new operators alike can learn from each other as the industry changes faster than ever. A conversation for anyone building a rental business today, and for anyone wondering what it takes to keep building twenty years from now.   Links: Vintory Sign up for the live launch here. Connect with Brooke on LinkedIn.

This week Tom steps outside the Smoky Mountains to talk with Travers Xanthos, a friend and now Guesty colleague who's spent the last ten years building, breaking, and rebuilding a short-term rental business in Nashville. Travers's path started with a cold call list pulled from Craigslist and a "maybe" from a landlord after 25 no's, and from there took him from rental arbitrage to backpacking Bali on early Airbnb income to nearly losing everything in the first weeks of the pandemic. Tom and Travers walk through it all: the scrappy early hustle, the pivot to housing construction workers when Nashville's tourism disappeared overnight, and the total reinvention that followed, culminating in a fully Dolly Parton themed property that outperformed market projections threefold. They get into the deeper lesson underneath the story: why "average doesn't cut it anymore" in an oversaturated market, why the four hour work week is largely a myth, and why staying ahead means genuine differentiation, not just a nicer paint job. Travers is candid about why he eventually sold off his portfolio, and what changed in his own thinking about legacy management companies once he got to know Tom and Mountain Laurel Chalets. The conversation closes with a look at Guesty, the property management platform Travers now represents and the one MLC recently adopted, and a conversation about what it looks like to blend decades of hospitality experience with the technology built for what comes next. A conversation for anyone chasing a new opportunity in this business, and for anyone wondering how to keep growing after ten years in it. Connect with Travers below: [email protected] LinkedIn Deep dive into Guesty + get an extra $500 off onboarding using the link below: https://join.guesty.com/bqg90onhelld

This episode opens with a tribute — on August 25th, 2026, the Smokies lost Dolly Parton, and Tom takes a moment to reflect on what she meant to this community and this industry: someone who made it big and never stopped giving back to the place that made her. Episode 12 is dedicated to her. Then Tom picks up where Episode 11 left off. Building on Jodi Cleer's "five love languages" framework — revenue, property care, trust, communication, and pride of ownership — Tom walks through each one and hands homeowners the actual questions to bring to a prospective management company or co-host. This isn't the generic "what's your commission?" conversation. Tom digs into the real diagnostic questions: what's your all-in cost, how do you handle maintenance and who's actually doing it, how do you screen guests, who answers the phone after hours, and would your own staff want to stay in the homes you manage. Along the way he shares some hard-earned, occasionally hair-raising stories from the field — disconnected ceiling fans, sealed-off crawl spaces — that show exactly why these questions matter. The takeaway: no management company scores 100% across all five love languages, and that's okay. The real work is figuring out which one or two matter most to you, then finding the partner who actually delivers on it — and giving yourself the time to find that fit instead of rushing the decision. A practical, sit-down-with-a-notebook episode for any owner about to have that conversation.

This week Tom steps outside the Smoky Mountains to talk with Jodi Cleer, industry leader and marketing veteran now with Away Day, a collective backing property management companies across the country. Jodi's path started with a front-row seat to property management growing up, then took her through reservation call centers, the hotel industry, and helping grow a portfolio from 235 to over 800 properties, giving her a rare, multi-angle view of what it actually takes to run this business well. Tom and Jodi dig into her framework for understanding homeowners through five "love languages," revenue, property care, trust, communication, and pride of ownership, and why speaking to an owner in the language that matters most to them changes everything about the relationship. They also talk about the shift happening in the Smokies and beyond, from the investor-driven buying surge of the COVID years toward a return to lifestyle-based ownership, and what that means for the future of this market. They also get into something bigger: the idea of "coopetition," building relationships with fellow operators instead of viewing them purely as competition, because when the industry raises its standards together, everyone, owners, guests, and managers, wins. Tom and Jodi close with a look at VRMA's upcoming conference in Nashville this October 5-7, and a reminder that there's plenty of room in this industry for those willing to lead with abundance instead of fear. A conversation for anyone thinking about how to serve homeowners better, and how to build a business that lasts.

This week Tom steps outside the Smoky Mountains to talk with Annie Holcomb--hospitality veteran and founder of Annie & Co, and co-host of Alex and Annie The Real Women of Vacation Rentals, one of the most respected podcasts in the industry. Annie's path started in a front desk in 1992 in Panama City Beach and has run through vacation rental management, OTA operations, and now consulting--giving her a rare, ground-level view of how this lndustry actually works.  Tom and Annie talk about what happens when growth becomes a vanity metric, why remote co-hosting can put both guest and communities at real risk, and the basics every new operator get wrong--starting with trust accounting and the mistake of building a brand on someone else's platform. They also get into something bigger: the pull between technology and hospitality and why Annie believes the industry is quietly circling back toward human connection, not away from it. As she puts it, guests don't remember what you did for them--they remember how you made them feel. (Shout out to Maya Angelou) Tom and Annie close by making a case for a culture of abundance over secrecy in this business--sharing what works instead of guarding it--and a look ahead to VRMA's conference in Nashville this October 4-7, 2026. A conversation for anyone who wants to run this business with more professionalism and more heart.

Every year, Mountain Laurel Chalets gathers its homeowners for an evening called the Night on Ski Mountain — held high above Gatlinburg at the Ober Mountain Lounge. It's not a sales event. It's a conversation. Real data, honest perspective, and the kind of market talk that most management companies keep to themselves. This is Part One of three episodes drawn from that gathering. In this segment, Tom Goodwin gives what he calls the state of the union — a look at the five types of vacation rental operators now competing in the Smoky Mountain market, the three questions every cabin owner is asking (and whether they're getting honest answers), and why the choice of who manages your home has never mattered more than it does right now. Then MLC's COO Corey Hawks walks through the real numbers: where the Smoky Mountain market actually stands in 2026, what's happening with supply growth, why October has overtaken July as the top revenue month, how booking lead times have shrunk to under 30 days, and what the race to the bottom in the four-to-six-bedroom segment means for owners who overpaid in 2021 and 2022. This episode is a live recording from a private homeowner event. The audio reflects that — a real room, real conversation, no polish. What it lacks in studio quality it more than makes up for in honesty. Parts Two and Three of the Night on Ski Mountain series are coming soon. Mountain Laurel Chalets has been managing vacation rentals in Gatlinburg since 1972. Learn more at mtnlaurelchalets.com.

Welcome back to the Smoky Mountain Vacation Rental Forum. This is Part Three — the final episode — in our Night on Ski Mountain series. In Part One, you heard the state of the market. In Part Two, you met the people behind Mountain Laurel Chalets — Kay, Kelly, and Corey. This episode is different from both. This one steps outside our company. That night at Ober Mountain, I brought four people onto the stage who between them represent decades of history in this community — not just in vacation rentals, but in Gatlinburg itself. Patrick Potter, president of the Chalet Village Owners Association. Patrick's owned property here for thirty years. He used to have his home on our program — now he keeps it strictly for personal use, doesn't rent it at all. He cares about this village the way you care about a neighborhood you've raised kids in, because that's exactly what he's done. Randy Watson — general manager of the Gatlinburg Sky Park, and a high school friend of my wife Susan's, so this one goes back a long way. Randy and I also serve together as elected members of the Gatlinburg Chamber of Commerce. When we recorded this, Randy was closing in on forty-nine years at the Sky Park. Forty-nine years watching this town change. Vernon Corum, who you already know if you caught Episode 6 — an educator, a market observer, someone genuinely passionate about elevating professionalism across this industry. Vernon and I connected through LinkedIn, of all places, and it's turned into a real friendship. And Pam Betts. Pam owned a chalet company right next door to our office, back before Mountain Laurel acquired it more than twenty years ago. She kept her own home on our program after that. She served thirty years on the Chalet Village Owners Association board. And her connection to our family goes back even further than that — she and her husband were guests of my in-laws, Ralph and Dot, all the way back in 1974. As it happened, the night we recorded this was the sixty-year anniversary weekend for the Chalet Village Owners Association — so having four members of that board in the room together was something none of us take lightly. I asked these four one real question, in a few different ways: what do we owe this place? Not what can we extract from it. Not what can we get out of it this season. What do we owe it. What came out of that conversation is honest, and at times it's pointed — about deferred maintenance, about communication breaking down between owners and managers, about the difference between a consumer culture and a steward's culture. I'll step in with a little commentary here and there, but mostly, I just want you to hear what they said. Let's get into it.

The second installment from The Night on Ski Mountain.  This panel of experts in Vacation Rentals represents 85 years of leadership with Mountain Laurel Chalets.

What does it actually take to succeed with a vacation rental in the Smoky Mountains right now? Not the version you see on Instagram or in a realtor's projection — the real version, from someone who walks the properties, sees the gaps, and helps owners fix them. Vernon Corum is a real estate agent, investor, STR educator, and founder of Short-Term Rental Rescue — a program where he walks struggling properties and identifies exactly what's going wrong. He's toured over 200 Smokies properties a year and has a boots-on-the-ground perspective on this market that's almost impossible to replicate. In this conversation, Tom and Vernon dig into the operational blind spots that are quietly killing properties in this market, the misconception that vacation rental ownership can be truly passive, what it means to actually know your guest, why differentiation matters more than ever in a market with 13,000–19,000 available properties, and what it looks like to do this business the right way. Vernon also shares his vision for GRID Smokies — a new collaborative community for investors, operators, and vendors who want to get in a room together and actually help each other. Details in the show notes. This is a conversation about stewardship, trust, and the long game. We think you'll find it worth your time.

If your vacation rental reservation are all coming from one platform, you are not building a business, you are renting one.  In this episode Tom Goodwin unpacks what the data actually says about channel dependency in the short term rental industry, and why it deeply matters for cabin owners and operators here in the Smoky Mountains.

Tom Goodwin sits down with Paula Elliott, owner of Goldilocks Haven in Chalet Village — one of Gatlinburg's most storied vacation communities — for a conversation about what professional self-management actually looks like over the long haul. Paula bought her three-bedroom cabin in 2004 with her late husband, spent nine years learning the ropes with a management company, and has been self-managing from Indiana ever since. What she's built over 20 years isn't passive income — it's a system built on trust, relationships, proactive communication, and genuine care for guests, neighbors, and the community she's been part of for decades. In this episode, Tom and Paula talk through the infrastructure every long-distance owner needs, why setting expectations with guests prevents middle-of-the-night calls, how to think about the local workforce with the respect they deserve, and what it really means to be a good neighbor in a market that's changed dramatically since 2004. Paula also shares her honest take on the wave of new investors entering the Smokies — and what she wishes someone had told her from day one. If you own a cabin in the Smokies and you're doing it yourself, or thinking about it, this conversation is one you'll want to hear more than once.

Think about the last time you were a guest somewhere and walked away thinking — that felt like they actually cared. Not just clean, not just functional. Like someone thought about you before you arrived. Like you mattered beyond the transaction. How long ago was that? Now here is the harder question. Is that what your guests experience when they stay at your cabin? In Episode 3 Tom Goodwin makes the case that genuine hospitality is the single most underutilized competitive advantage in the Smoky Mountain vacation rental market right now. The properties are getting more elaborate every year. The amenities keep growing. But the human care for the people staying in those cabins is not keeping pace — and that gap is both the biggest problem in this market and the biggest opportunity for anyone willing to close it. Tom shares the story of Dot Egli, co-founder of Mountain Laurel Chalets, who built one of the most guest-loyal businesses in Gatlinburg's history on five simple words — love people and care for them well. He also speaks directly to self-managing owners about why their size is actually a hospitality advantage, not a liability. Great hospitality is not expensive. It is intentional. And it is available to every single person listening to this episode right now.