New Owner Needing Rental Advice

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
Martin L
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:33 pm
Location: Costa de la Luz

New Owner Needing Rental Advice

Post by Martin L »

As a new member can I first thank Paolo and all other contributors for a fantastic website.

I have just bought an apartment on the Costa de la Luz in south-west Spain, and intend to advertise it for the first time in the new year.

The first thing I must decide is which site(s) to advertise on.

I have followed Paolo's advice on finding the best sites to advertise on, and have lots of options to work through.

Unsurprisingly the sites that came out with the highest rating were the largest sites - 'holiday rentals', 'owners direct', 'spain-holiday.com' etc.
Also unsurprisingly these sites have 20-30 similar properties.

I realise that there are no definitive answers, but would it be best to still advertise on these bigger sites or the smaller ones such as 'holiday lets.net', 'click 4 holiday homes' etc. Many of which offer free trials.

Any comments or advice would be greatly appreciated.
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

Welcome to the forum, Martin. Image

Do these smaller sites appear in the top 20 (preferably top 10)results on search engines for relevant search phrases? If not, you will be saving money in the short term but losing it in the long term.

What about narrower search phrases - perhaps there is an unexpected phrase like 'costa de la luz cottages' (just an example) that is popular and returns niche sites and not the big boys. And if one of those niche sites was attractive to use and only had a couple of competitor advertisers, and lower rates than the bigger sites....then yes, that would be worth considering.

Personally, just starting out, I would be prepared to overspend on advertising the first year to get a good grasp of which sites work and which don't. I would advertise on at least 5 or 6 paid sites - chances are you can cut that back to 3 next year and get the same results.
Paolo
Lay My Hat
Martin L
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:33 pm
Location: Costa de la Luz

Post by Martin L »

Thanks Paolo.

I have used fairly broad searches - 'holiday rental', 'holiday apartment', 'holiday rental spain', '...costa de la luz' etc.

And the smaller sites do appear in the first couple of pages.

I will try narrower searches and see what that produces.

I don't mind spending £100-200 per site if it produces results, but am unsure whether sites with 20 similar apartments will be successful. What do you think?

I plan to use as many of the smaller sites that have free trials as I can to see what the response is.

What are your views of the totally free sites, are there any worth using?
kevincohr
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Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2005 5:44 am
Location: Nice, France

Post by kevincohr »

Martin,

There is a thread dealing with the use of free sites ... it includes a poll, showing how many free sites people tend to use. The general consensus is that free sites are hit and miss at best. It's probably no harm to list of a few, particularly those with free trials, but don't expect too much in the way of bookings.

If you would like to email me privately, I can send you a list of the better free sites.

Cheers,

Kevin
anmo51
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Joined: Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:40 pm
Location: Laterina AR- Valdarno Superiore -Tuscany-Italy
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a small contribution

Post by anmo51 »

Dear Martin,
This year I leased a medium property near my home in Toscana, and I started working with a couple of agencies, and with some web sites. Working with agencies you have to be prepared to pay their commission, but I found out that for the beginning it was a good choice, since the only think I have to do is to keep the place up to their standard and I do not have to worry too much about finding guest.What I plan is to improve my web site and little by little move on my own.
I wish you a splendid New year full of booking.
Anna
Martin L
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:33 pm
Location: Costa de la Luz

Post by Martin L »

Thanks Anna.

Agencies are an option, but I'm happy with my decision to advertise it myself, but just wondering which sites to use as there seem to be so many.

Happy New Year to you all.
gh
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Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2005 10:44 am
Location: Poitou Charente/Moraira/UK

Post by gh »

Hi Martin L

Firstly I wish you a Happy New Year.

Unsurprisingly the sites that came out with the highest rating were the largest sites - 'holiday rentals', 'owners direct', 'spain-holiday.com' etc.
Also unsurprisingly these sites have 20-30 similar properties.


How are the bookings for these properties? If they have little free dates say in PEAK maybe there is a demand for more similar to these! Depending on how many weeks you would like to make available for renting.
Although ours is not in your Country we asked ourselves the very same question in the begining. It took us two years to find what sites worked for us and we used free sites as well as paid ones. Keep the free ones they cost nothing and if others are getting bookings someone is looking at yours. Always look at your competition's availability to see why, what, makes there property look appealing. Then make your listing un-missable, look at your listing as YOU are the holidaymaker. Would I rent this place? Yes/No Why!

Wish you every sucess.
Martin L
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:33 pm
Location: Costa de la Luz

Post by Martin L »

Hi John

Thanks for your advice, sorry about the delay in replying, I've been at our new apartment for the first time.

I hadn't thought about checking the competitions adverts and availability, but will certainly do so.

I had just noticed that there were a few similar ones on the larger sites and wondered whether it would be better to be a large fish in a small pond or a small fish in a large one.

Martin.
Nightowl
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Post by Nightowl »

Hi Martin

Congrats on buying your apartment in the lovely Luz! It's a lovely part of spain, hope you had a great time there last week.

We bought our house in the Luz a year ago. I advertised on Holiday-rentals in December 2004 and by Feb 2005 it was booked for about 10 weeks, including most of the summer. More bookings came in dribs and drabs so we ended up with about 15 weeks through them. The rest were via friends etc.

In July we decided we would try and attract the german golfing market as we noticed a lot of germans in the area and when we visited the golf club in low season it was mainly germans. So we took a year on vacationvillas which has a sister german site. We got a few enquiries but nothing firm to date from them, but we felt that as we weren't getting many enquiries from July from h-r either, we would see how they fare in January/Feb when people are looking for their summer hollies before we formed an opinion. The enquiries that we did get from VV were all for dates already booked in the availability calendear in any case!!!!

So now we are in January and I've had one enquiry so far from h-r and nothing yet from vv.

However there is one other contender for the crown now... There is a newer site, costa-luz-holidays.com, which I advertised on a few months back at the end of their free trial period. I've had 3 enquiries now, one for April which was already booked and one firm booking and one other who says he's very interested. All from a site that has so far cost nothing. But I do know that that their fees are very low and I am certainly going to be willing to pay up when the time comes. They are small and specific to costa de la luz and I know that they are promoting the site quite heavily to bring it into the public eye.

I make a point of advertising on any free trials, just to test the site out - so i've also gone on homelidays and had a couple of enquiries from them too. They translate into several languages so are worthwhile I think.

I'm looking at h-r with interest as they have got bigger over the past year and I wonder if that will have an effect on the amount of enquiries I get. But last year they were very good indeed.

So at the moment my vote for the Luz goes to h-r and costa-luz-holidays.

But at the end of the day, it's not just down to the listing sites, you have to take the best possible piccies you can and get the most appealing description....

One other thing about the Luz is that if you are on an urbanisation where the pools are seasonal and only open during peak summer, you will probably find that this does affect your bookings, people do like a pool!!!

Hope this helps.
Nightowl
Forever going one step forwards and two
backwards......
Martin L
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Dec 11, 2005 7:33 pm
Location: Costa de la Luz

Post by Martin L »

Thanks Knightowl.

We did have a great time, and the weather was fantastic.

Costa-luz-holidays was a site that I was considering when they had their free trial offer, but as this is not available any more I think I will try elsewhere.

As this is the first season that I've rented out, I think I'll stick with UK sites for now, and maybe try other European sites in future.

Martin.
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