Guide to rental web services

Wouldn't it be great if you're web listings contained the phrase "please click here for a complete guide to our property and how to enjoy it."  I want to help you build that special site.

The real estate and vacation industries jumped on the web in a hurry.  Go to Google and search if you like.  You will find so much and also miss so much.  How will a surfer every find you?  We'll get back to that later.  It suffices to say that finding exactly what you want is one of the big problems on the web.

Your surfing client would like to hit one web site, type in his vacation requirements and be able to find every property that meets his needs.  The airline industry solved this problem years ago because there aren't that many airlines and even there are even fewer airline reservation systems.  Any travel agent, and now, any surfer can find every flight.

By comparison the vacation rental industry has no consolidated list.  Properties are scattered in hundreds of separate data bases if they are in a data base at all.  Calling or surfing one listing service will only yield the properties in one database.

Free rental calendar, guestbook, and newsletter:
Rentors.org offers free rental calendars and guestbooks you can use even if you don't have a web site. They also produce an quarterly newsletter with valuable tips. It's a very worthwhile organization.

Books, forums, seminars, web sites, and other resources for property owners:

• • Peach 'n' Peach is a vacation rental Owens blog by Mike Peach. I don't think this is the first one but I certainly appreciate that Mike is going on the record.

  • Compare Owner Holiday Rentals "A guide to choosing the best " vacation rentals by owner " websites to advertise your holiday rentals property. Our mission is to help you make the right choices for advertising your owner rental villas or apartments.

  • Rentors.org  is a very good all around site in addition to providing free calendars, guestbooks, and (not free) credit card services. Sign up for their e-mail newsletter. They maintain an archive of old newsletters.

  • Lay My Hat "The Rental Owners Guide to More Bookings" has rental and rental web site advice. You can sign up for a periodic e-mail newsletters which are also archived on the site. I confess that the "Lay My Hat" site is more straightforward than this one. I'm going to have do some studying.

  • Travel Rants : Travel & Holiday Forum is another online forum.

  • This website by VacationRentalOwner.com has a very good resources page.

  • How to Rent by Owner from Christine Karpinski offers seminars for vacation property owners , has a good question and answer page about by-owner rentals , and promotes her forthcoming book, How to Rent Vacation Properties by Owner.

  • Alfred and Emily Glossbrenner website promotes their book, How to Make Your Vacation Property Work for You! and has some helpful information online.

  • Road Map to your Vacation Property Dream by Christophoner Cain.

  • CyberRentals.com has useful newsletters. See their archive and sign up for the mailing list.

  • The Yahoo discussion group is helpful too.

  • Google News for vacation rentals.

  • Vacation Rental Owners Association  is like, the total package with membership fees. I haven't paid so I can't tell you much about the value of their services.

  • Kathleen Plumley at Plumley Drafting creates professional floor plans for vacation rentals.

  • The Non-Designer's Design Book by Robin Williams is not about vacation rentals at all. It's about creating nice looking printed materials and web sites. It emphasizes four rules: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity. It will help you learn why your listings on VRBO, A1Vacations, CyberRentals, and GreatRentals don't look as good as you'd like. Your listings violate the "Contrast" and "Alignment" rules.

  • Ogilvy on Advertising. His chapter on print advertising alone is a revelation. In the back of our heads we knew it all along but we thought the web was "different." Here is a challenging question: How to design a rental site that is equally appealing to men and women?

  • useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Website is not about renting. It's about usability and particularly about web site usability. Read his "Alert Box" which contains such articles as, "Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003."

  • Questions and answer on sales taxes from HotSpot Management.

  • Rental Avenue is the "total package" rental web site provider. It has a calendar, reservation system, keyless entry, templates, and a site builder. Here is their fee structure.

  About property management services:
  Few owners can handle all of the management chores of the house they live in much less a rental property hundreds of miles away.  For that you can use property management services.  This one is a good example.  The point is that many services also create a small web page for you and list your property on their web site.

  About web property listing services:
  If you use a property management service, you'll probably get a web listing.  If you want your property to get more Internet exposure, there are a number of classified add type web services.  You'll pay a fee for your advertisement.  At the minimum you'll probably get a few pictures and maybe a small web site.  At the max you'll get an online reservation and payment system.

  The point of these services is to make your property easier to find on the Internet.  The more listings you have the better chance you guests will find your place on the Internet.

  A web site beyond a property management or classified listing:
  I cover this here, but let me remake a few points:  Your property needs exposure on the web that you get from the services but these services don't present your rental as the unique place it really is.  To repeat myself once more: Wouldn't it be better if you're web listings contained the phrase "please click here for a complete guide to our property and how to enjoy it."  As an example, try this listing site, and compare it to the property owners own web site.

Previous article		Next article
Do a stand-alone web site yourself - cheap! (Or not)		Attending Christine Karpinski's By-Owner Class