Ebay an update on selling rental weeks

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stewart-sandeman
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Ebay an update on selling rental weeks

Post by stewart-sandeman »

An ongoing update re selling on ebay that i thought worth sharing with others who may be interested.

Firstly - the two houses I rent are abnormal so bear this in mind (one can only be reached by boat, and the other cannot be reached by car and requires guests to walk down a steep hill - carrying luggage and food etc) so not your typical rentals.but the lessons may apply to others if treated as general learnings.

1 - trying to rent months (e.g Jan - March) when few want to go to remote parts of Scotland even if cheap is pretty pointless - even if price is low. So only really an option if trying to back fill weeks at a few weeks/months notice.

2 - For odd weeks where there are no rentals in summer or slightly off peak it is a reasonable option - I start the bidding at £400 for a £650 rental - and this has been successful.

3 - The level of repeat purchase the following year at full price has been OK.

4 - No tremendous difference to customers who have paid the full £ via other outlets, and ebayers - no negative issues to date re purchasers.

5 - Try to persuade people to pay via normal routes and not pay pal as commission is high via pay pal.

6 - Try to use enbay special offers re selling to reduce costs from 10%

so in summary - if it it a first year or early days of renting your house, and you have a few weeks spare and they are fast approaching and take the "opportunity cost" approach of better some £s from a rented house than empty weeks it is a route worth exploring. If no bids it has cost nothing apart from your time.

Totally understand that you will never know if you might get a booking at late notice at full price - and that is the dilemma - but in my opinion a bird in the hand is worth twice as much as a bird in the bush.

My rental houses are not mainstream and that may distort things but as a first year rental with a new house and ebay I have achieved a total rental of 37 weeks - although the four ebay weeks are at a considerable discount (£250 per week)- I personally think it is an approach worth a try.


Peter
Vector
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Post by Vector »

Hello Peter,

Frankly I am not even sure why I am on this forum since I apparently have been a member since 2013, last visited in 2014, and the one post I apparently made back then is not visible.

However your thread intrigued me, as I am an owner of a rental property and have often wondered if there was a site that you could have people bid on particular weeks or months.
Naturally everyone thinks of Ebay to sell XYZ, but I didn't realize they allowed that type of auction.

I know you posted some caveats, but my first question would be regarding alternate payment methods. I was under the impression Ebay no longer allowed any method except for Paypal.
So what other methods do you use if someone wants to rent your home (having won an Ebay auction) ?
AndrewH
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Post by AndrewH »

I am no fan of Paypal and much prefer using a debit or credit card, but when I really want to buy something on the net and there is no alternative, I grit my teeth and use them. However, I have found that Paypal will take and process a card payment (provided you join or jump through some hoops or whatever), but it seems that one pays them extra for this privilege.
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Nemo
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Post by Nemo »

Vector wrote:I know you posted some caveats, but my first question would be regarding alternate payment methods. I was under the impression Ebay no longer allowed any method except for Paypal.
So what other methods do you use if someone wants to rent your home (having won an Ebay auction) ?
You cannot remove Paypal as a payment option, or prevent someone using it if they wish, but you can still request payment however you choose. Once you’ve received payment by other means you progress through the normal transaction procedure.
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