Multiple letting agents.

Do you mean web sites that advertise holiday lets?

Hi Dave

Yes sites like Airb&b Booking.com etc.

hi Bobby.  For starters I wont use airbnb or booking .com or some of the others.  There are several reasons but the main ones are they handle everything to do with the initial booking which limits your contact with the potential guests until after the booking has been made, so you don't have a chance to check out the potential renter or say that you don't want those dates booked (it may be 4 days in the middle of 2 weeks on your availability calendar so restrict your renting options).  For some maybe that doesn't matter but to us it does.  The house is our second home as well as a rental and we like to stay on good terms with the neighbours, so we wont allow certain groups of guests - student groups, stag/hen groups, etc.  Our target market is multi-generation families but we also have several returning professional couples despite having 3 bedrooms.

The other reason is that these companies take a fee for advertising with them (no problem with that), then charge high booking fees to the renter, then hang onto all the rental money until after the guest arrives and then charge for them handling the payment and for paying the money out to you.  Basically they are huge money generating sites that have no real customer care to either owner or renter.  And remember, neither were originally set up for self-catering, whole house rentals.  I am also aware that both sites have unregistered lets on there.  Tripadvisor owns Hollidayletting with both a free or paid for option but again they hold the rental back and communication between you and the guest is limited, especially with the free option, and has to be done solely through their site until the guest has paid.  Again very poor customer care.

So the sites I DO RECOMMEND are firstly spain-holiday.com (paid) where you handle all the arrangements,  and homeaway.co.uk (there is a free option but the paid option is better) where they handle the payment, but they pay you straight away rather than hang onto it, but you do have the option of direct contact with the potential guest before accepting the booking.  These are the two we get our lettings through and we have a high occupation rate, but we also have a lot of returning guests and personal recommendations too. There is also an Irish site holidayhomesdirect.ie but they do not have many properties in our area.  I am currently looking at theholidaylet.com as an option as cheap but looks like a good set-up, but again not many properties in this area.

You only really need a couple of big sites and maybe a free or cheap listing elsewhere to get going.  The sites I have recommended are strict about license numbers too, which is obviously good.  I do not send the contract through the sites, we do all that directly with the guest as good communication, and a friendly but professional approach are important, and this allows us to personalise some aspects.

I hope that's helpful.  Bev

Hi Bev

Thank you so much for the valued information you have provided I really appreciate it. It sounds you have got it right you have really done your research.

We cant advertise just yet as we have only got part 1 of the licence so awaiting the other paperwork so hopefully not to much longer. Thanks again for taking time to respond to my post.

Kind regards 

Bob