For Avromi Perkowski, who works tirelessly with no commission, it’s all about helping others enjoy their holiday

Photos: Avi Gass

Avromi Perkowski remembers getting that frantic call on Erev Pesach nine years ago. A friend of his had arrived in Orlando, Florida, for Yom Tov — and found that the home he had booked was already occupied. After some discussion, they discovered that the home had been sold after an agent rented it to Avromi’s friend, but the agent hadn’t bothered to inform the new homeowner about prior bookings.

A trained emergency responder who volunteers for Flatbush Hatzoloh, Avromi’s rescue instinct kicked in. After a flurry of phone calls and urgent messages, they found his friend a different home, with just hours to spare until Pesach began.

Unfortunately, Avromi’s friend wasn’t the only one who discovered his Pesach house wasn’t available upon arrival in Orlando. Some dishonest agents in the area were in the habit of listing booked homes for rent in the hopes of landing a higher-paying guest — and when they got a better offer, they would transfer the reservation without informing the first guest. Then there were agents who were outright frauds who listed homes they had no right to rent, took the rental fees, and ran. At the time, there was no effective mechanism in place to stop these scams.

“Families would show up in Orlando and find themselves stranded,” remembers Avromi, who lives with his family in Flatbush and has been going to Orlando’s Solterra Resort for Pesach for close to a decade.

Within the health care world, where Avromi is the COO of The Veritas Healthcare Solutions, they say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Avromi applied that maxim to the Orlando oilem.

“I came up with a simple solution: A few of us created a spreadsheet that we share,” he explains. “We track the addresses of all guests who plan to spend Pesach in the area.”

Every family that books a Solterra Resort home notifies Avromi, who adds it to the spreadsheet. Once a home is booked, other families know regardless of its online status, that address is reserved, and while scams still exist, this effectively stopped double-booking issues.

“This year alone, six homes were almost booked twice, but the second families were notified that the ‘available’ home was already booked by checking our spreadsheet,” he says, adding that this also helps weed out fraudulent agents. Renters in different Orlando resorts collaborate and share information, and if something smells off, they’ll investigate and warn others off that agent.

Travelers also started see Avromi’s name as the administrator of several Orlando WhatsApp groups, and they reached out for other booking-related questions, like which areas to rent in and how to book a home. Avromi is no real estate agent, and he gets no commission from services rendered, but that hasn’t stop him from embracing his role: helping 150 families enjoy their Pesach in the Solterra Resort in Orlando.