What have you learnt from renting other people's properties

[susanj]

Martha-

You said--After a boring day trawling through the awful, awful VRBO, I could really see why people go through agencies.

Why do you say that? We are on vrbo. (www.vrbo.com/138908 and www.vrbo.com/17508).

Sue

[Giddy Goat]

Like when you look at your visitor stats, the really valuable thing they don't tell you is - what keywords are missing.

Yes, that only dawned on me the other day!

Sue, we're on VRBO too and I've never liked the site although it's a little more 21st century now than it was! Just wish they'd ditch the soft focus photos ....

Perhaps Martha is simply referring to the wealth of properties on there? Luckily there aren't many in our area of France as yet but I can imagine the choice in North Am could be overwhelming to some: nice to have such a huge selection but it does have its down side.

[Martha]

sjde, like GG says, I just found it difficult to use!

Loads and loads of properties, which is fine, but with this comes the need for simple, efficient filtering systems. For all I'm not a huge fan of
http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/
I think it does handle this aspect very well.

Hardly anyone that I looked at had up to date availability which was frustrating, and the thumbnail photos are so small as to be completely useless. You can't sort by price, and the layout means that people have to put telegraph-ese abbreviations and loads of figures into their description line, which makes it hard to read.

And I hate those soft-edged photos!

I thought it was awful, but it's hugely popular - if we had much of a US market I would definitely advertise on there.

[Martha]

Egg cups, you say.

I better get some!!
Neither of us are boiled egg fans and it never occurred to me...

Kitchen roll is another thing I don't really use but should perhaps get into providing. These threads are really useful for stuff like this.

Now that we're doing everything ourselves, we have a lot more facility to add all this stuff. The agency only used to provide one bin liner for each lot of guests which bugged me a bit.

[Christine Kenyon]

Know what you mean, Martha. I've just put in tea strainers after someone commented that there weren't any. As you can tell, we use tea bags!!

[susanj]

Okay, now I see what you mean about VRBO. We got on the site in late 2002 and I beleive there were 15-30 other properties in our little town. Now there are 152!

The thumbnails are a help, but agreed--too small. And I wish they had search functions.

BTW, we DO keep our availability calender up-to-date.

I looked at the site you mentioned and it is a Home Away company. I thought Home Away and VRBO had combined, so you'd think VRBO would have a similar format.

If I want to advertise on a site where Europeans will see my listing, do you recommend that one--holiday-rentals.co.uk?

Thanks!

Sue

[Musetta]

sorry to say, but most of my Europeans find my US house on VRBO.

[pambon]

Okay, now I see what you mean about VRBO. We got on the site in late 2002 and I beleive there were 15-30 other properties in our little town. Now there are 152!
Sue

I see that only 5 properties from here are listed - maybe I should cash in now while the iron is hot; many Americans come down this way in search of their 'roots' but I don't believe business will be good at this particular time and the site is not cheap.

[Paul Carmel]

Back to the original question "What have you learned from renting other people's properties"...................Well not a lot! Here we sit in a very nice apartment, but the owner is not on site and the house keeper obviously has been getting away with it!! If you read the spiral bound guest book you can tell he's not on site.

1, Please don't leave a floater in the loo, it only takes a second to flush, and while you are there you might work out that one of the screws on the loo seat is knackered.

2, Old ex punters soap left in soap trays along with their pubes is not a pretty sight.

I think it was Enid who posted saying "it's the little things" It's also the bleeding obvious

[Partridge]

Arghh Paul, point 2 is a very sore one with me ! I think I have finally got it through to my managers and they in turn through to the cleaner that old soap must NOT be left in the bathrooms

[Moliere]

1, Please don't leave a floater in the loo, it only takes a second to flush, and while you are there you might work out that one of the screws on the loo seat is knackered.

2, Old ex punters soap left in soap trays along with their pubes is not a pretty sight.

Oh Yuk, and Double YUK!

I would shoot my cleaner if you couldn't eat a meal in our bathrooms. (Not that I'd want to, you understand, but she is the original human zap-tornado!)

Mols

[Paul Carmel]

Been eating out since we got here, so no washing up!! Until this morning when I went to wash up a few wine glasses.............No hot water in the kitchen It's not broken down there just isn't ANY!!!

[pambon]

This is making me feel guilty

I am presently having the pleasure of giving a flying visit stay-over to 2 LMH'ers, but when I checked out everything yesterday before their arrival I found a shutter handle that only half closed and an internal sliding door that did not lock on closure at all.

Something to be fixed next week but it should have been PERFECT in my opinion and the fault is mine for not checking it out earlier. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa while beating my breast

[Christine Kenyon]

Paul wrote:

No hot water in the kitchen It's not broken down there just isn't ANY!!!

Might go some way to explaining the problem with the loo as well ..... .

And don't go beating your breast, Pambon. There's a big difference between something not working and something not being there in the first place! At least you're aware of what needs fixing and are doing something about it. No hot water in the kitchen is fairly fundamental.

Intrigued to know where you're staying, Paul!

[pambon]

Thanks Christine, but it does make me cross with myself as I had the guy around on Monday to mount the key safe I have just acquired (for my offspring rather than my guests!), had I been aware of these things he could have done them in half an hour. He even asked me if I had anything else I wanted done!

At least everything else is just about perfect I think even the weather, though chilly at 11°C, is blue skies and brilliant sun.