Lay My Hat

I run my business from the UK and am completely commission only. I don't employ anyone in Spain or have an office there. The people that do the meet and greets and maintenance/cleaning are all resident in Spain and themselves self employed. I have a house in Spain but don't rent that out. All the ho...

I got an email from Airbnb today saying that were going to share information with the tax authorities. I rent out houses on the same development as my house on behalf of other people. I only take a 10% commission and pay all the costs for my website advertising etc. so don't make a fortune and I dec...

For those of us in Europe I think the exchange rate is not helping as it is much worse than last year. Also flight prices seem to be high. Flights for a family of 4 costs much more than a week in any of our properties! We had our best every year in 2012 but unless there is a late rush 2013 is not go...

Great tool - thanks
Results show 47% search for Costa de la Luz
42% for specific dates
39% for our town and 30% for 3 bedrooms
Only 16% are searching for a pool which I am suprised about.

HL are offering a free trial for £1 for 2 months up to 29th February but seem to be operating outside their own T & C's. I have an account with them for our townhouse and have done for some time. Just recently a friend of ours asked us to try and so some rentals for their villa with a pool. My h...

I didn't renew my ad this year because I only got two bookings last year and they have now linked up with Villa Rentals. This means that anyone who is on Villa Rentals is automatically on Espana Breaks so more competition. :( Whereas last year there were not that many properties on the Costa de la L...

Our January enquiries were 50% up on last year. February is about the same as last year to date. We have got more bookings so far for 2011 than 2010 but we have more properties! Last year we were turning people away in the middle of February that wanted August. At the moment we still have a bit of a...

It has been quite a while since I have heard from them. Had forgotten I was on that site until I saw your post GG!
Made me go and update my details which were out of date because we moved house last year.
Shame it has gone downhill as I did get 2 bookings in 2008 but only 2 enquiries since.

Eye on Spain is fantastic as a source of information for people that live in Spain or spend a lot of time there :) But my question is - would those people be looking for a holiday rental? You might get a few that would like to go to a different part of Spain but I wouldn't have thought enough that w...

no the owners pay cleaning on top of that. They also pay the meet and greet. The 10% is my fee for all the work I do to get the guests there in the first place!

Wow I am too cheap I charge 10% for marketing, handling enquiries/bookings, arranging the meet and greet and cleaning and returning the damage deposit! No wonder people keep coming to me!
20% is a ridiculous amount for commission.

Interesting how things can vary from area to area. You have to do what is usual in your area otherwise you would look expensive and potentialy lose bookings. If I were to separate the cleaning fee I would look cheap and maybe get more bookings :lol: But everybody in this area includes it so I do as ...

I agree with WendyJ - you have too many similar photos, that might put some people off. You have a garden and a roof terrace - I would put some photos of that on your ad. People like to see the outside areas. I would also put one of one of the pools. Certainly for what I can see the house looks very...

they have masses of properties in our area so don't get many enquiries except for August which don't normally come in until after Easter when we are usually full. Don't think I have ever had a booking through them. Certainly wouldn't want to pay for a listing - would probably bring in more enquiries...

we had loads of people looking at our website last weekend but no enquiries :( Today I got an enquiry that turned into a 2 week booking and also somebody came back who enquired 10 days ago and booked :) Maybe some of the many others who have enquired since 1st Jan will suddenly come back and book as...