SeekVacationRentals.com

It’s not easy to select a good vacation rental from the tens of thousands that are available. Usually the only real information you have to go on is in the description and pictures as described on the web site or in the vacation rental catalog.

Be sure to look carefully at all of the photos for the vacation rental listing. They will tell you a lot about the place you will be staying. Read the description they give carefully. Many questions may not be answered there, so ask the owner or agency. Be sure to ask questions, look at pictures, read about the surrounding areas, and talk to other people who may’ve used the travel agency / vacation destination or stayed in the place you are considering.

Here’s some other tips to help you book a vacation rental with success.

1. Book the rental early – many travelers do this at last minute and often pay considerably more than people who book weeks or months in advance
2. Look at more than one rental company – there will more than always be several reputable vacation rental companies offering rentals in the area you choose. Do research, order some brochures and learn a little more about the place you’re visiting.
3. If you have kids, ask them what they’d like - For kids it may be great if there’s simply cable TV or a pool available. For adults though it may be a quetions of how far the drive is to the nearest town or beach.
4. Make a list of what your “must-have’s” are – examples: being close to the beach, close to the airport, number of bedrooms, access to a pool (if it’s shared or yours exclusively), maximum capacity, some of the local attractions, distance to shopping centers or grocery stores. Also consider your maximum amount will beto stay at the rental you choose.
5. Get a few books or maps of the area – having these often gives you valuable information for which towns, cities or villages are likely to appeal to you.
6. Read the small print - Check the reputation of the company, read the contract, look at the cancellation charges. Buy holiday insurance! Check flights/car hire prices for the nearest airport – is it cheaper to fly to another nearby airport – and is there availability when you want to fly?
7. Make a shortlist and email to check availability - Sit down with your partner and/or children and discuss the various options. Look at the pros and cons of the rental properties that you’ve found, consider all the options and make a choice. Don’t procrastinate - book it!

Have some other advice on travel spots or vacation rentals not listed here? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Here is a great list of web sites to search for those hard-to-find vacation spots. This list is by no means complete, but are of the top vacation rental sites online.

1. www.bedandbreakfast.com and www.ibbp.com - (the Web site of International Bed and Breakfast) lists international b&bs.
2. www.cabins.com - Vacation cabins, chalets and inns organized by U.S. state and city.
3. www.homesaway.com - Lists 60,000 vacation rentals in 90 countries. Provides the owner’s e-mail or phone number to make your own arrangements.
4. www.vrbo.com - Villas and houses from Vacation Rentals by Owner.

Destination-Specific Vacation Rental Resources

1. Castles and Country Houses to Rent: Ireland
2. ClassicVacationRental.com: Villas, country houses, apartments and small charming hotels in many areas of Italy and France, as well as ski chalets in Canada
3. Global Home Network: Apartment rentals in the major cities of Europe and some cities in Asia and South America
4. Hilton Head Rentals: Hilton Head, South Carolina
5. Paris Pied-a-Terre: Paris, France
6. Domus International: Rome, Italy
7. Summer in Italy: Italy
8. LakeRentals.com: U.S. lakes
9. CoastRentals.com: U.S. beach destinations
10. ResortQuest International: U.S. and Canada

There are a number of quality sites that will provide easy searching for vacation rentals in Italy, Venice, and places like Amsterdam. The few above are among our top picks. Please feel free to comment with additional resources if you have them.

When Elizabeth and Robin Wood decided to rent out their new vacation home in Florida, they hired a local real estate agent to hunt for renters, but they also paid US$300 (euro233) to list the house on specialized Web sites.

The Woods agreed to pay the agent a 25 percent commission on any rentals they got, even ones that they found online.

“Every tenant came through my listings on the Web,” Elizabeth Wood says. “This summer we parted ways with the realtor.”

Wood cannot fathom why anyone would list or rent a vacation home anywhere other than online.

Some investors are starting to think the same way, putting money into sites that offer searchable listings, lots of photographs and easy navigation.

One of the companies that Wood used, HomeAway Inc., will announce Monday that it has secured US$160 million (euro124.38 million) in venture capital and will pay an undisclosed sum for an older and leading provider of U.S. listings, VRBO.com, or Vacation Rentals By Owner.

Austin-based HomeAway is less than two years old, but has moved quickly to consolidate the infant industry. The company got started when officials at Austin Ventures teamed with the chief executive of another company they had backed to search for a new technology investment.

The executive, Brian Sharples, was on vacation with his family when he had a Eureka moment.

“We prefer to stay in homes instead of hotels, but it frustrated me that it took so much work to check out vacation rentals,” Sharples said. “I saw how the Internet worked for other forms of travel and thought, why not vacation rentals?”

When he got back to work, Sharples and a chief strategy officer studied the business and learned that there were already several Web sites featuring vacation rental homes, including VRBO. So instead of starting from scratch, they pitched Austin Ventures early last year on the idea of buying their way into the business. Since then, they have bought a half-dozen Web operators in the United States and Europe and combined them into HomeAway.

“We saw it as a business with a huge amount of untapped potential,” said Phil Siegel, a partner at Austin Ventures. “The companies we brought together were growing fast and they were very profitable.”

HomeAway charges US$300 (euro233) a year to list a home in the United States whether the property is rented out once or 20 times. There is no charge for using the site to rent a place.

It is among the most graphical of the vacation-rental sites. Potential renters can search by destination or throw in their choice of a couple dozen preferred property types or amenities to narrow the field. VRBO takes a few more clicks to see photos of a property.

Henry Harteveldt, a Forrester Research analyst, estimates that online travel overall will be a US$74 billion (euro57.5 billion) business this year. He did not put a figure on the size of the vacation-rental end of it, but he predicted it is ready to boom.

“Not everybody wants to check into a hotel every time they go away,” Harteveldt said. “We don’t want the same-old same-old, even if we go back to the same destination year after year.”

Vacation-home rentals compete with hotels, especially resorts that market to vacationers. For large families, a house can be cheaper to rent than several hotel rooms, and they come with kitchens, which allow vacationers to stretch their budget by preparing some of their own meals.

In the long run, the toughest competition to the online rental sites could come from larger, established travel Web sites that already sell airline tickets, hotel rooms, car rentals and cruises.

“The big challenge is will HomeAway emerge as the large brand, or will Expedia or Travelocity or the real estate companies try to get into this?” Harteveldt said. He said the venture-backed rental sites will have the marketing money to create a preference in consumers’ minds — but so will the big travel agencies.

Travelocity.com LP announced last month a partnership with LeisureLink Inc., putting it into the business of listing vacation condos and time-share units in the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean. Steve Reich, a Travelocity senior vice president, said the deal would raise the profile of vacation rental properties for consumers.

2006/11/14
By David Koenig DALLAS, AP