Owner, manager and developer of vacation rentals and rental homes advertising online.
Helpful tips on renting vacation rentals. Agree with Kristine's assessment of talking with your potential renters. Talking with each visitor sets expectations up front - your expectations of how the property is to be used and also their expectations of how the property will be when they arrive. Many of our vacation homeowners who advertise their properties online find that a customized email response to inquiries saves a great deal of time and sets the expectations. Your email response to inquiries should include arrival and departure instructions, how the renter will get keys, what amenities your rental provides, area attractions info, and of course payment and cancellation procedures. Take a minute to make a standard email response - it will save you time in typing your message response over and over. Helpful to have a personal vacation rental website too for more pictures and despcriptions etc. Here's a link to a free service to list vacation homes for free, 24 images, link back to your website, availability calendar, youtube video embeds and private email inquiries from visitors - this is new listing for a real vacation home - http://www.furnishedrentals.com/property/1002188/detail Also more tips for vacation homeowners blog - http://www.gofurnished.com http://www.FurnishedRentals.com Vacation by Rentals Map
If I read the "paper" newspaper and have further interest in anything from cars to real estate I gravitate back online anyway - to get more robust information. I agree with David W. above - newspaper ads help to drive traffic to your site. The days of gigantic inserts is history. I think much can be accomplished with a really eye catching / thought provoking small ad. Traditional print has it's place but you should be reaching a global audience and they are online. Particulary for niche markets like vacation rentals - online is where the action is now. www.Furnishedhomes.com Vacation Rentals Map
Hi Richard - Not sure how basic you want the info to be? While I do not blog specifically as a realtor, I do blog about vacation rentals and have found it worthwile. For the basics and step by step instruction these video tutorials can't be beat. Check out my blog entry from today for the link over to 10 videos to help you start a self hosted blog. I am sure that there is info about tracking etc. Here is the link and hope it helps - http://www.gofurnished.com/vacation-rentals-blogs-create-your-own-from-scratch-10-easy-to-follow-videos/ Best Regards
