Lay My Hat

In conjunction with a subscription to one or more well known worldwide listing sites, I'm beginning to think that using a "country specific" listing site might also be a good idea: for those who are new to renting, the conversion rate is theoretically better, since the visitor is already seriously thinking about that particular country for his next holiday and not just flirting with the idea!

I've compiled a list of what's on the market, both free and paying, (please let me know if there are any I've left out) and wondered if you'd be happy to post any comments you have on these sites. Some have already been dealt with on LMH, and some have not. In any case, things change so some more up to date feedback on how they are currently performing would help us all. I haven't tried any of them except that in Aug 2008 signed up with France This Way, the creation of a LMH member .....

NB: Those with * are free general classified listings with a section for holiday rentals - some in France only and others offering rentals worldwide. I've kept the latter in since all the starred sites are France or Belgium based - thus target these markets primarily and therefore may be useful.

So here's the list then!

a-gites.com
altelaviseca.com *
annonces.com *
annonces-de-france.net *
bestfrenchholidays.co.uk
bvdirect.co.uk (Bonnes Vacances)
cavendre.fr *
charme-traditions.com/fr
cheznous.com
choosefrance.com
clevacances.com
cyber-gites.com - allow a link and are free
france4families.com
france-rental.com (a portal for Living France, France, and French Property News magazines)
francethisway.com
france-voyage.com
frenchconnections.co.uk
frenchentree.com (has a sales and rentals section, the rentals section of which is still fairly new)
frenchholidaydirectory.co.uk
frenchholidayhomes.com
frenchmaison.co.uk
french-owners-direct.com (aka bookholidayrentals.com)
french-property.com (has a sales and rentals section)
frentals.com
gite.com
gites.fr
gitelink.com
gites-de-france.com
gitesdefrance.info
grandsgites.com for properties or clusters of gites, sleeping 12+
green-acres.com
hhfrance.com
holidayfrancedirect.co.uk (the new Brittany Ferries gites site)
holiday-gites.com
holiday-gites.co.uk
hotfrog.fr*
itourisme.net
leboncoin.fr *
libres-annonces.com/classifieds/ *
locations-france.com/us
location-vacances.info/
meetthefrench.co.uk
n4normandy.com
portail-bnb.com
pour-les-vacances.com/index.htm
quicherchetrouve.be*
relaxinfranceonline.com
rentalsfrance.com
rentgitefrance.com
rent-villas-france.com
proprietaires.resaroom.com
7enlocation.com/fr
super-annonces.net *
top-destinations.fr/
vacation-rentals-in-france.com
visitfrance.co.uk
vitannonce.com *
webrankinfo.com/annuaire *
zoneannonces.com*

Bonnes Vacances is another, GG - again, more brochure, but they do have a web presence.
bvdirect.co.uk

Thanks - forgot about them LV! I will add them to the list.

Thanks for including us GG!! Not sure about 'still in our infancy' though We are currently no. 1 for 'French gites' and no. 2 for both 'gites France' and 'gites in France', get lots of visitors, and are either very cheap or free to list with. Surely that makes us at least a teenager?

No danger we'll ever count as grown-up though

I'll take that bit out then Marcus - sorry - I view you as being still in your infancy ya see!

That alright then

perhaps visitfrance.co.uk should be included as well, although I don't know much about how well they do they turn up in the search results quite often.

I forgot, I'm with visit-france.co.uk, they aren't as good as they used to be, but are quite cheap and bring in the odd booking.
Some more for you Jane:
relaxinfranceonline.com/
france4families.com/
(although their site doesn't appear to be working at the mo)
pour-les-vacances.com/index.htm
AKA
vacation-rentals-in-france.com/
holidayfrancedirect.co.uk/
(the new Brittany Ferries gites site)
holiday-gites.com/
And this has come quite high in the last month's referrers, although it is really for all Europe, not just France
en.toprural.com/holiday-cottages-france_bn-fr.htm
I've got no idea how my property got on there!

marcus wrote:That alright then .

Second infancy!
Thanks for that site - forgot about it.

Good God LV- you've been busy and thanks for all those! I left the last one off the France only list but it's in your post for anyone who wants to check out.

Here was I thinking there wouldn't be very many of these before I opened the thread!

I'm very happy with some of the freebies too specific to the area. I use The Languedoc Pages
www.the-languedoc-page.com
The best rental site for me this year though has to be VRBO and blogging is worth its weight in gold !!

choosefrance.com
locations-france.com/us
meetthefrench.co.uk
preparersesvacances.com
altis-vacances.com
portail-bnb.com

Visitfrance use to work really well for us when we started 5 years ago , worked well for 2 years and we got 60% of our bookings through them , but the third year got nil and only a handful of enquiries so have not been with them for the last two years . Did think of trying them again , but a friend uses them and has only had 1 booking this year. Someone said it was to do with the search.You at one time could see which country had been looking at the advert and in our last year it was mainly all usa based viewers, so not sure if this had an effect

Marcus, I can see some lovely photographs on your site but no mention of who took them !!! (moi)

Thanks Nessie - I skipped two of the five as they covered other countries as well, but we now have a total of 24!

Marcus, I can see some lovely photographs on your site but no mention of who took them !!!

do you mean the ones at this page because they have your name and website right under the pictures where it's always been

Have I used one somewhere else and not credited it? Deeply sorry if yes, just let me know and I'll sort it out.

ah, found it, I didn't know it had been put there as well. corrected, sorry!

Thanks Marcus, nice blog btw !!

Please do give your feedback on any of the sites listed if you've used them as we'd all find that helpful I'm sure; only around a third on the list already have a dedicated thread on LMH.

Merci mille fois!:)