How to Make a Vacation Home Profitable
Sure, you could read a book on the subject. You could make some educated guesses too. Truth be told, it doesn’t take a genius to understand that once you’ve got your vacation home or condo purchased and are ready to begin renting it out, all that matters is how you are going to generate the interest.
Luckily for all of us, the internet has came along and made it infinitely cheaper and more efficient to drive targeted vacation property seekers directly to your property. Heck, that’s what this whole vacation rental website is all about right?
Aside from all the logistical hassles of having to hire and manage maintenance, cleaning crews, guests picking and returning keys (and typically doing all of this from a remote location), it comes down to marketing. What websites should you list on?
To be frank, you need to be on the ones that have the greatest search exposure. That is, which websites rank in the top 5 on Google, Yahoo, or MSN for keywords associated with your area? If you have a Destin beach condo you’d like to rent out, search “destin beach condo” and “destin vacation rental” in Google and see who shows up. Hint: If you’re having trouble coming up with the keywords that searchers are typing in for your area, try the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool (it’s been working lately).
Run through the top 5 or 10 and see what their rates how, how their listings are designed (Hint again: Pictures are the most important thing), and how many properties they have in your location. Keep in mind that you don’t want your property to get “lost in the fray” - if there are already 200 vacation rentals in Destin, you might consider any options there are to feature your property or perhaps just move on to the next site.
With regards to pricing - it really doesn’t matter that much the difference between one vacation rentals website and another. It’s going to be between $120 and $200 these days. The old mantra is “If you book one person from our site, it will more than pay for the listing cost”, which is true, but keep in mind that you have to watch out for which sites are going to provide bookings. Like I said, it’s about search exposure and site layout. Consider those two things and those two things only.
I’m not tooting our horn here either, seeing as CoastRentals is only some 7 months old. We have a ways to go in our marketing, but we have made tremendous strides for our core terms already. We hope to earn your business by driving bookings for your properties, and at the same time I encourage you to go out there and give a few of the other websites a try. Being listed on all of the top vacation sites for your area may end up costing you up to $1,000/year, but I guarantee you it’s all the marketing dollar you’ll need to spend.
The only other suggestion I have is to start / host your own website that specifically highlights your property only - it’s a great place to direct people after they inquire because you can host as much information and as many pictures as you’d like. Bring them in through the big boys and then direct them to your own site to close the deal.
Happy vacationing everyone.
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