Holiday Houses to rent, Vacation Rentals & Holiday Rentals Worldwide

Getting inquiries is not always an exact science, but we have found some keys to getting more on our site:

1. More Photos – Put in as many photo’s as possible.

2. Professional Photo’s – Having professional photo’s taken of your property can make all the difference in the world.

3. Availability Calendar – Keep it updated. People hate calling to see if you are available. Make it easy for them.

4. Rates – Are your rates competitive with others on this site & others like it?

5. Purchase a Featured Listing – Get your listing featured throughout the site so more people see it.

6. Change the Property Title – The property title is very important for search engines. We recommend something along the lines of “City Name Holiday House” Eg. Florence Holiday House - Vacation Rental

7. Write a Better Property Description – Check out some other people’s property description. Really describe your property. Write in a tone where people imagine being on vacation there. Think of the thoughts & feelings the vacationer is going to feel while staying at your place & checking out the attractions. Try to break up your paragraphs so they are short and not long winded. Consider hiring a professional copywriter to write your description.

8. Use Pay Per Click (PPC) – You can always use Pay Per Click Advertising. Try out an advertising firm like Google Adwords or Yahoo! Search Marketing. You can drive huge amounts of targeted traffic this way to your listing.

9. Spy on the Competition - This is my favorite & the most powerful. Go to all the different portals. Check on everyone that's listed in your city. See what their pictures look like, see how many pictures they have, are the pictures professional and high quality, is the property staged, what features does it have, do they have a pool, allow smoking, can pets come, do they have a refund policy, how much is the security deposit, what is the total cost to rent - daily & weekly, Pay particular attention to their booking calendar. Focus on owners calendar's that are full & try to determine why they are getting all your business.

Other reasons could include:

1. People don't feel comfortable renting from you. This is a sales business! You have to be able to talk to people and "close the deal".

2. You are not giving enough detailed information when you reply. It's amazing how many people will just give a couple word reply when emailing an inquiring renter with some thing like "We are available." Don't laugh. Are you also guilty? Remind them of your home benefits, talk about the things to do there, tell them how much better you are then someone else.

3. Don't just reply once to the email inquiry. I was guilty of that myself when I first started. Email them, then give them a day or two and then email them again. Ask them to please reply so that you will not continue to bother them if they are not interested.

4. Try to reply immediately. If you can, reply within 1 hour. There is some truth to the early bird gets the worm in this business.

5. Don't forget to call also

We allow 12 pictures in our standard listing.

You can still list with us, but photos are a huge selling point for your property. We have found professional photos make a big difference in getting booked.

I highly recommend hiring a professional photographer if your budget allows

Absolutely!

Both from an owner & renter perspective, it protects both of you and says exactly what the other one is going to do & what happens if one person fails to do it.

If you have been in this business any length of time, you know that getting fake inquires & fake checks are a part of this business. If you want additional info on check scams check out::

Fortunately the bad checks & inquires that are fake are usually easy to spot with some experience.

The typical fake inquiry will be very broken English & give you lots of details a person booking travel would not provide. Sometimes it's hard to tell real from fake inquiries. So you have to respond to their questions.

The scammer replies back telling you they can only send a personal check or cashiers check and want to have some extra spending money so they will send the check with several thousand extra dollars more then the rent.

They will fed ex the check & need you to cash it and take your amount plus a little extra for your trouble and wire the rest back the same day you cash it. Then a week later sometimes even 30 days or longer later you get a call form your bank saying the check was a fake & you are now out all that money plus all the bank fees & possibly an overdrawn bank account. So now your credit is dinged also.

Anytime you get something like that I recommend you tell them no. Ask for a check in the amount of the rental only. Make sure time is on your side. Require all security deposits and total rental costs be paid a minimum of 30 days before check in so checks have time to clear. Any last minute booking should be done with a credit card or preferably cash only.

Before I even think of depositing a check into my bank account, I will call the issuing bank & verify funds are there & available. Don't just use the phone number on the check. Scammers are known to print up there own checks using there own phone number and pretend to verify funds.

Google the bank name & find the customer support phone number. Call that number and give them the check details.

Google the bank routing numbers & verify that they match up to the bank name on the check.

Faq