Renting the Beach
VACATION RENTALS | EXTENDED STAYS | LISTINGS
Breathing Easier Brittany Blackman’s vacation rental business is thriving after beating pandemic-sized odds BY NICK COREY
IN 2020, BRITTANY BLACKMAN LAUNCHED HER
Miramar Beach company, Breathe Easy Rentals, in the wake of pandemic-induced turmoil in the industry. She had been working as the operations manager for another rental company. But the pandemic spurred an inflection point for her, inspiring the start of her fledgling business. She was now navigating entrepreneurship while juggling health restrictions amid an era of the “new normal.” Blackman grew up in small-town Chatsworth, Georgia, the sister-city of Dalton, Georgia — known primarily as the carpet mill capital of the world. But, Blackman felt pulled to something beyond the carpet industry, even if not initially knowing what that might be. “My family, my support system, they were great,” Blackman said. “I just knew that career-wise, I wanted something beyond what Chatsworth offered.” She attended Reinhardt College in Waleska, Georgia, hoping to find a path that might interest her. “I didn’t love it,” she said. “I left after a semester.” Remembering the surrounding, natural beauty she experienced after visiting Destin during her senior year in high school, Blackman decided to make the beach her home. She found whatever work she could to support herself. “I was a photo girl for fishing excursions,” she chuckled. “I did door to door sales; whatever I had to do, I’d do it.” Until she found employment that seemed to fit her organized temperament and outgoing personality. “I started working as a reservationist for short-term rental properties.” Unbeknownst to Blackman, that job, however short lived, would be the seed that sowed her career. “Starting out, it was great,” Blackman said. “Then out of the blue, within my first few weeks, the operations manager abruptly left. We were a pretty small team, and he left with everything. We were scrambling.” The owners had moved to Alabama and asked Blackman to take over as operations manager. She worked, learned and began developing her own personal business chops. 46 SPRING / 2023
Then COVID-19 hit. “We had to let go of everyone,” she said. “It was awful — so sad and stressful. Blackman was left short staffed, adding nearly 700 cancellations to her list of duties. “I had to tell people who’d been stuck indoors forever that their vacations were now canceled,” she recalled. Blackman made YouTube videos that garnered attention — raw, unscripted, emotional pleas for Florida’s governor to end the restrictions that had been placed on vacation rental companies. “It was emotional,” she said. “It all ended up being a shake-up moment of life for me.” But Blackman had an idea. She’d garnered connections in the industry. And she trusted her work ethic. She proposed buying the business from the current owners. They refused her offer. “I ended up putting in my notice to hopefully convince them,” Blackman said. Her plan backfired. Her bosses accepted the resignation. “I reached the point … I just decided it was time,” she said. Blackman ventured out on her own, starting Breathe Easy Vacation Rentals from ground zero. She found obstacles of miles of red-tape restrictions that short-term rental owners and property managers dealt with daily. So she became a leading voice for others in the industry. She emailed, called and attended meetings with government representatives, seeking ways in which time-consuming obstacles could be reexamined. “I kind of unknowingly became the circus leader, trying to keep up with county regulations and relaying all that information back to property managers,” she said. In a landmark victory, Blackman achieved the permission of affidavits to serve as sufficient for those