You invested considerable money, time and effort to get your vacation rentals ready for visitors. First you have probably invested thousands of dollars to purchase your vacation home. Next you spent thousands to furnish the home with everything from beds, linens, cookware, flat screen tvs and all the comforts of home. So now what? Who is going to rent your place?
Wether you rent your home by owner or hire a professional property manager, chances are the best source of renters will come from one single source – The Internet. You need to tap into the power of the internet to find vacationers and travelers who are looking for your vacation rental. There are several things to consider when you jump into the world wide web of advertising, however, none more important than your costs or advertising budget.
Professional property managers are most likely tapped into the internet to find the majority of their inquiries for your home. The cost of advertising is built into their management fees. When you hire a property manager be sure that they have a proven track record with furnished rentals. If you hire a property manager that specializes in unfurnished homes they will typically have a different market and clientele than the furnished rentals niche.
If you would like to manage your own property and secure reservations for your property you will have a few options that work well in conjuction with one another. Focus your efforts on maximizing the exposure of your rental on the internet. This may include placing paid ads on vacation rental websites such as VRBO.com, Vacationhomes.com or Vacationhomerentals.com. Some sites have trial periods and costs range from $99.00 to $349 annually for each ad. There are even new websites that offer FREE listings to all owners and managers to help grow the site and promote your rentals. One new site that offers unlimited free listings and places your rentals on a Google interactive map is FurnishedHomes.com.
Many vacation rental owners have paid to develop personal websites to advertise their properties. This may be a simple site that just lists a few photos and descriptions or a very sophisticated site that allows visitors to make reservations and payments online. Many of the vacation rental websites now offer better technology and management tools than were previously available a few years ago. The cost of listing on several vacation sites is often less money and produce better results than personal sites. The better vacation rental websites will have at a minimum an owner panel that allows you to upload your property photos, a central availability calendar or link to rentors.org calendars, and a contact homeowner form that allows visitors to contact you directly via email or phone.
Be sure to advertise on multiple vacation rental and furnished homes websites as they all have different advertising parameters and often are placed in the internet search engines at varying levels of exposure. For example, an international website may cater to vacationers and a United States site may be viewed more often by regional travelers or corporate visitors.
Be sure to keep your network of realtor friends and local contacts. These people may be able to send you referrals. If the advertising process becomes to expensive or if managing your vacation home is too time consuming it is wise to consider hiring a professional property management team. Whether you rent by owner or have a management company internet advertising can play a vital role in the success of renting your home. Here’s to your success!