by: David Stuttard
The important steps involved are described in this article; if the advice
given is taken and you do the necessary work (some effort is necessary for
what is, after all, a major investment), there will be no problems and you
will maximise your marketing potential. However - and this cannot be
emphasised too strongly - if you are lazy and think that good renters are
going to rush to book your beautiful villa while you sit waiting for the
phone to ring, you will be left with an expensive, empty investment.
The property obviously needs to meet local health and safety regulations, to
be clean, well-maintained and furnished/decorated to a standard that fits
what you expect to receive in rent (simple and neutral respectively is
normally appropriate). It should not be cluttered by lots of personalised
artifacts, such as family photos and all kitchen/bathroom utensils, etc,
should be out of sight. If when guests first arrive they are welcomed by a
basket of essentials (tea, coffee, milk, rolls, butter and mineral water,
etc) and fresh flowers they are more likely to relax and come again next
year. You should also make sure there is an up-to-date and complete file of
useful local information for each new visitor.
You need to decide what dates you want to rent it out to holidaymakers and
then what are the seasonally-based rental prices you should set to attract
renters - based on researching prices asked for similar properties in
similar locations.
Positive consideration of how the property will be maintained is necessary -
if you are there, this can be controlled by yourself (covering such things
as meeting guests to hand over and collect keys and formally agree the
condition/contents of the property before and after and listing who to call
on when the air conditioning or plumbing fails), otherwise you need an agent
or a reliable person (make it a business, not an informal, arrangement) to
take care of these things.
It should go without saying that you need to find out about legal and tax
issues in the country where your property is located and, indeed, with your
own country's taxes associated with overseas rental income. This means
consulting the appropriate departments or professionals.
Then possibly the most challenging job is that of advertising. There are
many ways to do this, such as in newspapers, magazines, local agents, your
own website, through relatives and friends and of course via reccommendation.
None of these ways are likely to generate enough bookings to make it worth
your while. They would cost you a lot of time and money to control and the
option of having your own website is a non-starter, because it will cost you
from £500 to £1500 for a designer and your website will not be found by
searchers.
On the other hand, there are many well-organised holiday rental search type
websites, that have other properties on their books and that attract many
visitors via the search engines (importantly, they have already made the
investments needed to develop a website and promote it using various search
engine optimisation, ie SEO, techniques). Some of these websites offer free
advertising, some are free to advertise but take a percentage of any rentals
and some simply ask for an annual fee, which varies widely but is usually
proportional to how big they are. Many in each category charge extras, eg
for highlighting an advert or for entering advert details. It is suggested
that the free ones do not offer a very professional service, in which
properties are presented too simply in advert-bound and cluttered pages. It
is further suggested that the very big ones are expensive and are simply
overwhelming for searchers (with thousands of options that can quickly lose
a visitor).
The best option is undoubtedly to use any and all professional-looking
websites with a nominal annual fee, eg £30, noting that some offer a free
period (which should be grabbed with both hands!). Some work is necessary to
enter details and upload photos, etc; but that's all part of the work needed
to promote your property rental. Some websites do that work for you for a
price, if you already have your own website to extract details from or you
provide them details in some other way.
One website that you must use is http://www.solapartments.co.uk, who are
free up to 1/1/2010 (then £29.99/year). Importantly, this is a very
professional website that is uncluttered and provides a clean, full-featured
property advert page with 16 photos in a distinctive Flash gallery, an
interactive map, an availability calendar and direct owner contact details.
It also features a wide variety of travel aids via seperate menu selections
(not mixed up with property search and property advert pages!). They do not
make you pay extra for anything, even if they have to enter your details for
you.
On the website(s) you enter your property details, it makes sense to 'sell'
your property in the most effective way you can imagine, to attract bookings
in what is a very competitive market - good, clear photos of every room,
every outside feature and interesting local attractions such as the beach or
golf course; a pricing structure; complete and grammatically-correct details
of the property and its surrounding areas, including all facilities (air
conditioning, TV, broadband internet, kitchen appliances, etc) in the
property; what there is to do in the area (horse-riding, sailing, sightseing
- you name it).
You can outline terms and conditions in your advert, but you should have a
rental agreement already prepared, so that this can be emailed to a renter.
The agreement needs to clearly define the deposit required and when it is
due, when the balance is due (before they arrive), what the refund and
cancellation policy is, what additional costs there are such as for cleaning
after they leave, if smoking or pets are allowed and how the condition of
the property will be established before and after the rental (to decide if
any damages or losses need to be paid for out of the deposit).
Most importantly, when you receive an enquiry you should respond promptly
and in a professional and friendly manner (they won't wait more than 1 day -
they're anxious to plan their holiday somewhere now not next week and they
will be keen to establish a rapport with the owner - they need to feel they
can trust you when they send you a deposit) and be prepared to be flexible
and helpful with such things as the price, times of arrival and departure,
minimum stays, help with airport transfers, etc - just make sure you get
that booking!
About The Author
Dave Stuttard writes for the blog in the http://www.solapartments.co.uk
website, where you can confidently advertise (currently free in 2009!) and
search for holiday rentals (mainly in Europe).
You have full permissiion to freely reprint this article provided it is
unchanged.
Source :
ArticleCity
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