Some summer renters encounter a new fee By Read Kingsbury

The practice of charging holiday renters a separate booking fee, which realtors say is widespread in the tourist industry, has reached Block Island. As the winter renting season opened, three of the local real estate agencies started charging renters a new $50 fee.

"We just need more revenue to keep up our level of service," said Cynthia Pappas of Sullivan Real Estate. She spoke of the rising overhead costs of doing business: the utilities, the insurance, the staff, the advertising, the trouble calls.

It's true that as homeowners have raised the rents on their houses year by year to meet their costs, so the revenue to the agencies from rental commissions (typically 15 percent) has risen. "But that's a slow increase and we find it doesn't keep up with our cost increases," Pappas said.

Faced with a choice between charging the homeowner or the renter more, rental agents encounter less price resistance from the renters. Sources say that Ballard Hall Real Estate and Block Island Realty in addition to Sullivan are charging the $50 fee now.

But Atwood Real Estate, Beach Real Estate, Offshore Property and Phillips Real Estate are not charging a fee. Neither Edith Blane at Offshore Property or Susie Weissman at Attwood Real Estate said they any plan to do so.

"Different agencies have quite different overhead costs," Weissman pointed out.

One of the major differences is whether an agency needs to hire extra people to man the phones during the winter rental season. "You can't rent houses without a real estate license, and so those who need help have to hire good people and pay decent salaries," Nancy Pike at Beach Real Estate pointed out.

She and her partner Mary Stover think that "maybe eventually" they will add a booking fee.

Pappas said rental firms in Newport and elsewhere in Rhode Island charge a booking fee and she had encountered the practice in Florida, Colorado and Mexico. The Providence Journal, in an article this week, reported that fees in the Cape Cod tourism industry ranged from $15 to $40.