Renting your Holiday House is never just as simple as uploading your property, taking a few photos and watching the money roll in. Holiday House owners often over-estimate the revenue that they will receive and under-estimate the work that needs to be done in order to generate bookings.
Within this article will be a few tips to help you show off your property.
Target Market
Finding a specific target market can greatly increase your rental potential. Work out who your property will appeal to and customize your listing to suit their needs.
Although, you need to ensure that you are not alienating other markets when you are creating your listing.
Eg. A beachfront property will be great to have during the summer, but tell the renter why it is also suitable for the colder seasons. Promote activities nearby that can be done if there is bad weather and let the renter know about the beautiful fireplace that you have in the lounge!
Photos
A picture says a thousand words, right?
While most people understand that photos are an important part of a listing, some don't realise that they can be the difference between a booking or two over the holiday season, and a full calendar throughout the year.
The first thing that a prospective renter will see when they search for houses is your title and main photo. Your main photo should entice the renter to want to select your property and read more.
Generally this would be a well-lit photo showing off the best feature about your property, this could be the beautiful deck looking out over the beach, or the spa pool you can relax in after a day on the mountains. Renters want to be able to imagine themselves in the photo.
If you can afford to hire a professional photographer, then we would recommend doing so!
Descriptions
Once a renter has seen your well presented photos and capturing title, you now need to sell them on the property.
Make your property an experience! Identify your strengths and unique selling points and tell the renter about them.
Encourage your renters to see themselves in your property, describe things that they can do at and around your property. Saying that your Holiday House is "well presented" and "in a great location" isn't good enough, the vast majority of owners will write this.
Go into detail about local attractions, most renters will not be familiar with the location so you are selling the destination just as much as your property.
Pricing
Setting your rental prices is very hard to do if you have not had much experience before. How much you think your property is worth may be different to what people want to pay to stay there.
Have a look at properties in the same location and see what they are charging, your prices are not fixed so feel free to experiment with them.
If you have promoted your property as a high-end listing, then make sure your price reflects that. Renters want value for their money, but you would be surprised at what people would pay if you are offering something "extra".