Vacation Home rental tips for owners:
The vacation rental market is booming. With the traditional source of travel accommodation, a hotel, you get a room. Vacation rentals on the other hand have multi rooms, a personal touch to them and offer visitors more room, more privacy and more amenities than a hotels. Plus, vacation rentals are often cheaper.
For owners, vacation rentals can be a sound investment. Renting out vacation homes can be two to ten times more profitable than a regular home month to month rental. For property owners, risk-reward should be a consideration ? Vacation rentals are a business and successful businesses start with good planning.
Vacation Home Rentals - Get the right insurance
Homeowner's insurance for your vacation rental property is essential. Do skimp on liability insurance. Choosing the right home owners insurance can save a vacation home owner money, time and future headaches. Determining your insurance needs is an individual choice and it often is valuable to ask other owners in your area who they are insured with, their experience in dealing with the various insurance companies as insuring a vacation rental is much more involved than a regular home. You may have a new rental guest every week. Have you anticipated how you will deal with possible damage claims, irate guests and legal action ? With insurance, it is better to have too much than not enough.
Vacation Home Rentals - Marketing your vacation home
Any vacation rental property owner needs to advertise to be successful and remain competitive. Recently I read an article that suggested Canadian businesses need to invest 80% of profits to advertising. This was no doubt written by a hopeful executive from some advertising firm. Investing 80% or even 40% of profits to advertising hasn't been our experience. Smart advertising rather than paying out obscene amounts will help your bottom line grow in the long term.
Online advertising has proven to be a key way of reaching prospective vacation renters. In many businesses, people use print advertising with limited shelf life. Once a newspaper or magazine is read, it's discarded along with your ad. Newspapers have a shelf life of a few days. Your ad just doesn't get seen for any length of time.
Vacationers search the internet to find vacation rentals. If I want vacation home accommodation I would chose to search on reputable and established sites that are based locally.
Consider advertising as an investment. You put out $39, $50 or even $199 for a one year ad. You want and need inquiries from your advertising investment that can be converted into bookings. Is investing in a US based company with a gazillion vacation rental listings a benefit or is it best to keep your advertising more local? There are benefits to both and many vacation rental owners consider investing in multiple places to advertise.
As owner of a Canadian based vacation home website, I deal with each listing personally and try marketing each home listing several times a week
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We can bring interested vacation home renters to your listing, but like anyone else, we can't make them contact you about your rental. That is where you need to take some time creating an inviting description as well as including some great photos of your home and area.
Other ways that you can help your property get more rentals.
Photos are the window to your property and can be the decidingfactor in a vacationer choosing to rent your home. When it comes to planning a vacation, most people need visual stimulation.Reading about a white-sand beach, gourmet kitchen, and infinity pool doesn'talways cut it. It's the alluring picture of a relaxed couple sipping a coldbeverage as the sun sets that will motivate guests to whip out theirwallets. You don't need a sunset to entice renters, but photos go a longway towards attracting a steady stream of customers
Get a website for your vacation rental if possible. Get your home listed on multiple sites. Internet advertising can get you ten times better results than other techniques for a fraction of the price.
Vacation Home Rentals - Make your fees all inclusive
Hotels are famous for surcharges that suddenly appear on the bill at check out. That is one of the reasons so many travelers are checking out of hotels and choosing to rent vacation homes. Don't follow the hotel examples. Include the cleaning fee in the price of the rental and require a reservation deposit that converts to a security-and-damage deposit when renters arrive. That way renters won't feel nickeled and dimed with a list of fees and charges.
Vacation Home Rentals - Being a cut above your competition
Provide a rental experience that encourages both repeat rentals and word of mouth recommendations about your property.
Do what the classy hotels do. Provide your renters with little extras, mints on their pillows, fresh coffee, a coffee pot and real mugs, fresh flowers, a bottle of local wine, an overnight bag with toothpaste, a tooth brush, slippers etc. Even a few snacks, a small vegetable tray, bottled water or chips goes a long way. It might cost you $25 up front to treat guests - but the payback in word of mouth testimonies and repeat guests far exceeds the cost. With gas prices going to the moon, a $25 gas card incentive per stay is a great idea.
Provide your guests something to take home that will remind them of their stay. It doesn't have to be anything big, perhaps a fridge magnet, not only will the renter feel grateful for the gift, they will likely think fondly of your vacation home.
Vacation Rentals Global Home Exchange and Vacation Homes
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