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Posts Tagged ‘Listings’

by bensonkua

Vacation Rental Listings – The Good, The Bad and the Outright Scams

Advertising pass rentals crossways the nation has changed to the property owner’s advantage. Five years ago, property owners depended on their local newspaper to advertise their pass rentals. Newspapers charged anywhere from .00 to 0.00 to run a three-line cram-it-in ad for 30 days as a classified listing (00 per year). The reach was limited to the amount of papers that were printed and read on any particular day. Compare that to today’s global reach and on-demand access to rental listings on the World Wide Web.

This is great news for owners wishing to advertise to the far corners of the earth. Travelers from around the world now have the capability to view listings on thousands of advertising sites with relative ease. There are risks, though: RENTER BEWARE! That pass rental you have selected in New York, Utah or Lake Tahoe might be an empty lot upon your family’s arrival at 9:30 pm after a day of traveling.

Travelers are beginning to become keen to the fact pass rentals are a favourite choice when traveling with the family, but checking to see if that perfect getaway is verified is an often overlooked step. Anyone from Hong Kong to the Idaho can post a listing for a pass rental on the internet. Simply log on to the internet, pay your 0.00 to post your listing on a favourite rental site, and field the inquiries as they arrive in your inbox. Not getting enough inquiries? Lower the price and add a few more pictures. Owners know this all too well and unfortunately so to the scammers.

98% of all the pass rental websites do not verify their listings. It is up to the consumer to adopt the risk and do their own due diligence. Scammers are good at what they do and here is why: They spend hours scouring these properties on these listing sites to learn how to create a good captivating listing, often simply slicing and pasting from other ads to create a great presentation of a non-existent property.

Just looking at some these listings, even the most experienced agents would have no clue whether or not the home, condo, chalet or cottage is legitimate until it’s too late. The renter has mailed the check or used an online means for payment and the money is transferred to a corner of the world we did not know existed. The email statement is shut and the chase crossways the border will end right there.

As the pass rental market expands by leaps and bounds, so are pass rental listing scams. Without some due diligence and research, your perfect family pass could end before it even starts.

How do you protect yourself from scammers? Obviously, be very careful before you send your hard-earned money to a listing on a pass rentals website. Be patient, plan ahead – it might take some time and some communication exchanges before you find the place you’re looking for. Find out who the listing belongs to! If it sounds too good to be true, or if you just have a feeling that something isn’t right – stop right there and ask for proof of ownership and that the home you’re viewing on your personal screen actually exists.

To learn more about renting verified pass rentals from real owners with real proof that the home exists visit http://www.reservemyhome.com for pass renal listings that are carefully verified for your next family vacation.

More Vacation Articles

To successfully market your pass rental online, you should think about adding your property to one or more Vacation Rentals Directories.   In addition you can build your own website that will feature your pass home.

If you want to build your own site, and don’t know much about designing websites, you can find many free templates to select from online.   Do a swift search for “Free Website Templates” on Google (or other search engines) and select one that fits your needs.
Here are some basic tips on how to build a successful pass rental listing or website to market your property.

-  Quality Photos.
Pictures sell.   Always include calibre pictures of your property on your website or listing.   Photos should be clear, accurate and up to date. Take some time with your photos, double look to see if everything looks neat and clean.   No one wants to look at a living room pic that has clothes and magazines laying around.
Consider adding pictures of the outside view of your Vacation Rental Home taken in different seasons.   For example, if you offer rentals year round, add pictures of how your Vacation Rental Home looks not just in the Summer, but also in the Spring, Winter and Fall.   This helps your potential renters imagine what to anticipate when they get there.

- Videos featuring your Vacation Rental Property.
If you have a video featuring your Vacation Rental Home, add it to your website or your listing.   If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video is a worth a million!

-  Keywords, Meta Tags and Titles.
If you do now know how to add keyword or Meta Tags, do a swift search on Google on “How to add Meta Tags to your Website” and read few articles about good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) practices.
SEO plays a very important part of having a successful Vacation Rental Website, and it’s not hard to learn.
When adding keywords, they should relate to your pass rental home and it’s location, such as “Vacation Rental in Orlando” or “Luxury Catskills Cabin” etc.
Titles of your pages (or your Vacation Rental Listing) should include keywords and location.   In general, your title should be a short, few words sentence (or two, if they are very shot).   For Example: “Cozy Vacation Rental in Orlando Florida.   Inexpensive getaway”.

-  Detailed, Honest Description.
When writing about your rental, include keywords that you added to your Meta Tags.   For example “Our Vacation Rental in Orlando Florida offers …” or “If you are looking for a Luxury cabin in the Catskills. . . ” etc.
Always tell the truth about your property. Misrepresenting your Vacation Rental home will only lead to angry guests. You should be very clear as to what your Vacation Rental Home has to offer.   This way the renters are not surprised (in a negative way) when they get there.   Try to cover anything that you can think of to describe your pass home in details.   Not only will this help you refrain getting unnecessary phone calls, or emails with questions that could have been explained on your website or listing, but it will also help you in case you run into unhappy guests.
We advocate that you have a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page on your website.   This page should have typical questions and short answers to them.
Think from the potential guests perspective… what would be useful to add to the description or FAQ page?
With time, as you rent your Vacation Rental Home, you will add more to your FAQ page as visitors will keep asking questions that were not covered.
When creating your Vacation Rental listing or website, let’s not forget that you should use standard capitalization. Do not use all capital letters for titles or description. In World wide web etiquette, this is the equivalent of shouting.

- Add a link to your Vacation Rental Listing on your website.   Also, if the Vacation Rental Directory site allows it, link to your website from your listing page.   This will help search engines find your Vacation Home on both, your website and your listings.

- Think about changing your description on your listings.
Search engines don’t like duplicate content.   Include all that’s important about your Vacation Rental Home on your listings, but try to write it again, instead of just simply copy/pasting your description from your website.

- Invite your prior guests to leave a review on your Vacation Rental Listing.
Travelers do read reviews.   Some are more interested in them than others.   In general, reviews from prior guests add trust in a view of potential new renters.   According to TripAdvisor almost 80% of travelers state they are significantly more likely to book a property if they can read reviews from past guests.

Write even more about your Vacation Home, update on current changes and news – Blog.
Search engines love Blogs, and potential guests will like more individualized and updated information about your Vacation Home.

Last but certainly not least, update your website AND your Vacation Rental listings from time to time.   Updated content leads to superior search engine traffic. If you don’t update your site, it will slowly get down the list on search results.

By : Tony

Vacation Rental Listings – The Good, The Bad and the Outright Scams

Advertising pass rentals crossways the nation has changed to the property owner’s advantage. Five years ago, property owners depended on their local newspaper to advertise their pass rentals. Newspapers charged anywhere from $50. 00 to $100. 00 to run a three-line cram-it-in ad for 30 days as a classified listing ($1200 per year). The reach was limited to the amount of papers that were printed and read on any particular day. Compare that to today’s global reach and on-demand access to rental listings on the World Wide Web.

This is great news for owners wishing to advertise to the far corners of the earth. Travelers from around the world now have the capability to view listings on thousands of advertising sites with relative ease. There are risks, though: RENTER BEWARE! That pass rental you have selected in New York, Utah or Lake Tahoe might be an empty lot upon your family’s arrival at 9:30 pm after a day of traveling.

Travelers are beginning to become keen to the fact pass rentals are a favourite choice when traveling with the family, but checking to see if that perfect getaway is verified is an often overlooked step. Anyone from Hong Kong to the Idaho can post a listing for a pass rental on the internet. Simply log on to the internet, pay your $100. 00 to post your listing on a favourite rental site, and field the inquiries as they arrive in your inbox. Not getting enough inquiries? Lower the price and add a few more pictures. Owners know this all too well and unfortunately so to the scammers.

98% of all the pass rental websites do not verify their listings. It is up to the consumer to adopt the risk and do their own due diligence. Scammers are good at what they do and here is why: They spend hours scouring these properties on these listing sites to learn how to create a good captivating listing, often simply slicing and pasting from other ads to create a great presentation of a non-existent property.

Just looking at some these listings, even the most experienced agents would have no clue whether or not the home, condo, chalet or cottage is legitimate until it’s too late. The renter has mailed the check or used an online means for payment and the money is transferred to a corner of the world we did not know existed. The email statement is shut and the chase crossways the border will end right there.

As the pass rental market expands by leaps and bounds, so are pass rental listing scams. Without some due diligence and research, your perfect family pass could end before it even starts.

How do you protect yourself from scammers? Obviously, be very careful before you send your hard-earned money to a listing on a pass rentals website. Be patient, plan ahead – it might take some time and some communication exchanges before you find the place you’re looking for. Find out who the listing belongs to! If it sounds too good to be true, or if you just have a feeling that something isn’t right – stop right there and ask for proof of ownership and that the home you’re viewing on your personal screen actually exists.

To learn more about renting verified pass rentals from real owners with real proof that the home exists visit http://www. reservemyhome. com for pass renal listings that are carefully verified for your next family vacation.