Renting Out Your Vacation House - Vacation Rental Websites Vs Free Classified Ads

If you're a homeowner looking to rent out your vacation house, there are several ways to go about spreading the word. In order to have your vacation home solidly booked throughout the year, you need to reach the widest audience possible. Thanks to the internet, reaching the widest audience possible looking for your offer isn't that hard at all. We will cover the pros and cons of some very inexpensive and cost effective ways of advertising to successfully renting out your vacation rental house, condo or villa.
Free Classified Ads. Posting free classified ads is one of the simplest ways of getting prospect tenants to find out about your vacation house, condo or villa. The most popular sites are Craigslist, Backpage and Kijiji. Go to one or all of these sites and provide some nice photos of your vacation house that you are wanting to rent out. Write a warm, fun detailed description about your vacation house, why it's unique and include any nearby amenities. Go above and beyond, take it a step further and make a short YouTube video walk-through of your vacation house and include the web address or link to the YouTube video somewhere in your free classified ad. That will surely increase your chances of getting responses from potential renters. Millions of people visit the Craigslist, BackPage and Kijiji websites in search of deals and offers for vacation houses to rent out. Millions of people also visit these websites looking to post their free classifieds and offers. The upside is that they get tons of visitors daily and it's free. The downside is since it is free to post ads, many people will also be posting eventually pushing your ad down the list. You want your listing to appear on the first page of your respective category. The best free way to do that is by checking back every couple of days (if you have not yet received any leads) and re-posting your ad. Unless you opt in for one their paid options, your vacation rental listing will get pushed so far down the list, any prospective tenants will never know your vacation rental home even exists. And there are no guarantees.
Vacation Rental Websites. These are websites specifically catered to vacation rental homeowners such as yourself and property managers. For a small fee they will handle all of the marketing and advertising professionally complete with an online booking calendar. Your task is simplified. All you have to do is provide detailed descriptions, photos, availability, a list of amenities and attractions near your vacation rental house, condo or villa. Once it is verified, just sit back and wait for the emails and calls to come in from potential renters. The most popular vacation rental websites that turn up when doing a Google search (which is what you want to increase your visibility to potential renters) are HomeAway and VRWD (Vacation Rentals Web Directory). HomeAway consists of ten vacation rental websites globally. Three of which are North American: HomeAway.com, VacationRentalsByOwner and VacationRentals.com. As for VRWD they consist of a total of six online vacation rental websites: VRWD.com, TrustedVacationRentals.org, VerifiedVacationRentals.org, VacationRentalsWebDirectory.com, Holiday-Rentals-Directory.com and Vacation-Homes-Network.com. On average these receive around 3 million unique visitors monthly. HomeAway and VRWD are industry leaders when it comes to vacation rentals. They are so confident in their services that they guarantee you will get a booking. If not, you get a full refund or can choose to book again the following year at no cost. Choosing to list your vacation rental house, condo or villa on a vacation rental website is not free, however the plus side is you get increased visibility and organized bookings. Save yourself the hassle of marketing and advertising. You will reach a larger targeted audience. Your listing is much more trusted by renters since it is verified by each website before your listing is added. And you get a risk free guarantee.
There you have it! Those are two of the most effective options to choose from when deciding on how you want to market your vacation rental property. Free classified ads on Craigslist, Backpage and Kijiji or, paid listings on HomeAway and VRWD directories. Whichever one you choose is totally up to you. Either way, best of luck in successfully renting out your vacation house!
About the author: Marc de Guzman is the owner of vacationhouseflorida.net.
If you found this article helpful or useful, you can find more articles on finding and listing a vacation house, condo or villa, luxury and discount vacations, cheap flights and hotel deals at http://www.vacationhouseflorida.net/.

View the original article here