Home: Message List - Vacation Rentals by Owners VRBO - any experience

Re: Vacation Rentals by Owners VRBO - any experience

DonyBye — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 16:48:33 GMT

Hello Simon07

I use(ed) VRBO for two propertes, one in Ireland and one in Spain. I
get almost three times more rentals from www.homelidays.com than VRBO.
I believe this is so as when you set up the website for your property,
homelidays translate it into about 7 European languages. As a result,
when someone Googles a holiday destination, in any language, it will
show up in homelidays. homelidays also have a very clever map search,
where you bring up a Google map area of where you want to stay and it
shows you all the properties in the area. homelidays allow you 14
photographs, they are less expensive than VRBO and at a time when the
whole world is reducing prices, I think VRBO and homeaway have a cheek
upping theirs. That said, VRBO has given me great service, it's just they should deal with market realities.

Re: Vacation Rentals by Owners VRBO - any experience

mmatchev — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 19:52:15 GMT

I have used VRBO com for few years,
but I don't get as much bookings from there as I wish.
My property is in Italy. I'm geting the most of my inquiries from http://arrangeyourvacation.com
But you have to try for yourself it VRBO works for you

Re: Vacation Rentals by Owners VRBO - any experience

balsamiqval — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:45:55 GMT

And from the other side: I have used VRBO to rent homes for remote employees coming for short-term stays in the Bay Area. Fantastic. Great site.

Re: Vacation Rentals by Owners VRBO - any experience

apm12309 — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:06:07 GMT

I think renting your second place is a great idea - my parents are actually looking into the same thing now that "the kids" have grown and moved on. We actually used this site instead:

http://www.zonder.com/United+States/South+Carolina/Hilton+Head+Island/vacation+rentals.htm

Re: Vacation Rentals by Owners VRBO - any experience

TahoeWeb — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:40:05 GMT

Hi Simon;

I do not know about that company you are looking at...But I do have a second home in Lake Tahoe! I just built a simple website (easy for me becuase I own a e commerce hosting compay) and post away on Craigs List with the link back to my site. Yes it may sound pretty crazy..However I do get a lot of rent time from that (CL). Maybe something you can try via Craigs List?

I have used a few rental places in the past, however they were pretty much going to do the same thing. So I figure I would save in the rental fee.

Best of luck

Re: Vacation Rentals by Owners VRBO - any experience

julietv — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:04:50 GMT

Yes. VRBO is the most effective way to market your vacation rental property. The largest and most popular vacation rental site. Specializing in BY
OWNER vacation rentals, homes, condos, cabins, villas and apartments.

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Re: Vacation Rentals by Owners VRBO - any experience

DomainDiva — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 19:07:10 GMT

Any reputable rental agency will want to see the property and will require a contract. Before listing with any agency be sure to check them out, and have your attorney vet them and the contract as well.

If the property is a condominium, then the condo managment may be able to help as well.

Rental commisions are usually 10-15% for the agency, you receive the rest on a pre-determined schedule agreed to in your contract.

Re: Vacation Rentals by Owners VRBO - any experience

FullyBooked — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:07:07 GMT

VRBO is the largest of the leading online listing sites. It is truly a "must" for successfully renting your second home. But it is not enough. We recommend also signing up with HomeAway.com. (Note: HomeAway now owns VRBO and most of the other leading sites.)

As for loading up on pictures on VRBO to get a higher position in the results, here's an article on just that topic. It appeared in an issue of our FullyBookedRentals newsletter:

Our advice to owners who want to offer their properties as vacation rentals has always been "Start with VRBO." Sure, the site is long overdue for a facelift. And the search tools leave a lot to be desired. But the fact is, VRBO gets about three times as many unique visitors each month as its parent company, HomeAway (1.2 million for VRBO vs. 400,000 for HomeAway, according to traffic statistics compiled by Compete.com). More important, VRBO produces results.

Early this year (2008), VRBO quietly introduced new prices and a revised photo policy. The annual cost of a basic listing is now $229 with 5 photos (up from $179 with 3 photos). You can add more photos, up to a new maximum of 16 (instead of 12) for an extra charge of $24 per photo, increasing the annual cost of your listing to $493 ($229 plus $264 for 11 extra photos).

And just why would you want to do that? According to a recent newsletter from HomeAway, "To show up higher on the VRBO list for your area."

To which we say, "Not so fast, Old Sport." Ad ranking has been an issue since the very beginning of the online vacation-rental industry, and VRBO has always used the number of photos as its primary ranking criterion. But in our opinion, playing the "pay for position" game on VRBO rarely makes sense. For two reasons:

First, vacationers don't shop by number of photos. They shop by number of bedrooms. And in all but the most competitive vacation destinations, it's just not that big a deal for vacationers to review all the properties that have the number of bedrooms they need.
Second, to make the review process even easier, at the click of a mouse prospective renters can override VRBO's "number of photos" sort order and re-sort the results by number of bedrooms. (That's the first thing we do whenever we use VRBO to look for properties.) So much for that extra $264 many VR owners have paid in hopes of appearing higher on the list.

In our opinion, there is only one reason to add extra photos: To persuade a vacationer to book your place instead of someone else's. So make sure that you include your very best five photos in your VRBO listing. If you need more pictures to tell your story, consider creating an online photo album and inserting a link to it in your listing. (For more on this, see the section on "Making Your Listing Stand Out from the Competition" in the free Vacation Rental Resources Guide that's posted at our FullyBookedRentals Web site.)

In short, don't just assume you have to play the VRBO pay-for-position game. That extra $264 might be spent more effectively by advertising on an additional site, hiring a professional photographer, or adding some new amenity that will give your property a competitive edge.

Copyright--Alfred and Emily Glossbrenner, www.FullyBookedRentals.com

Re: Vacation Rentals by Owners VRBO - any experience

beach123 — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:57:50 GMT

On the http://vrbo.com property listing, the costs are broken down for you. Very easy to navigate and write your own copy. The more pictures you have on your property the higher the cost of your ad. 16 pic's is the max., you can add a youtube video of your home for free if you pay for 16 pic's. Their rates are very reasonable considering if you get 1 rental it will easily pay for the cost.
You need to register with the city and state to collect the taxes, and send them in every month. Like any other business, you need to be aware of scams and screen your guests. VRBO has updates on this and a great forum. Tons of books and info. on this topic also.
We have 'snowbirds' in our home for 4 month at a time in winter. Summer months are busy. Aug - Nov. fairly dead. But you can get more in 1 week through vrbo than leasing it monthly. You do have utility costs, maintience and cleaning fee's. Hope this helps.

Re: Vacation Rentals by Owners VRBO - any experience

beach123 — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:19:46 GMT

Yes, this is a wonderful site to list your 2nd home/vacation home. We have had our vacation home listed for the past several years and it is a great source of income. It allows us to also use the home when we want it. You deal directly with the guests. We have had no problems so far.