Rental Property Portal reviews
In response to the positive feedback on my post 11 secrets to overseas renting, here is a quick run down of some of the most popular property rental portals aimed at buy-to-let investors and homebuyers thinking about renting a property independently.
All of these websites offer a wide range of international property listings and good search engine rankings, but as expected have more listings and therefore more competition in popular vacation and holiday resort/areas.
Notes if you are a renter
Offers good coverage of countries and with over 2200 property rental options in Spain and 725 rental properties in the USA, it isn’t hard to see why they are a leader in their field. A good property search facility is key and the Villarenters site offers numerous way to search for your ideal vacation property.
Notes if you are an owner
Rental commission is 10% of your set booking price and a payment module allows owners to include online bookings with credit card (3.25% credit card charge included in 10%), making it easier for clients to book the property. Below is a list of Villarenter positives:
· Fully customisable online holiday home booking system
· A rental business model suitable for one property or thousands
· Contract template with customisable terms and conditions
· Automated emails chasing payments
· Arrival instructions automatically sent to your customers
· Automatic cancellation policies
· Central booking calendar that integrates with Villarenters.com that can be integrated with your own website, making double bookings a thing of the past
· Access to your online member account means you can track the status of your bookings from anywhere at any time
· All booking details, customer information and communication stored centrally
· With RentalSystems you can update property details in seconds
· Create your own extra pricing models
· Create your own automatic discounting models, last minute long stay or early bird discounts are calculated instantly
· Credit card authorisation for breakage deposits, damages can be claimed online
Rating: ***** Easy to navigate, simple stylish design, delivers results
Notes if you are a renter
Covering most of the key holiday destinations in the world, this dedicated rental portal is user friendly and a nice touch allows potential rental clients searching for your buy to let property to find you by interest ie golf and skiing. It has a good general maps feature and country and region information.
Notes if you are an owner
Prices are £65 for 6 months plus 3 months free | £100 for 12 months plus 3 months free. There are small additional charges for additional listings, extra photos and golf listings.
Easy to register, the system has a built in calendar that you need to update yourself and the listing is easy to update. On the downside, it doesn’t have a payment module, so you will need to organise payment yourself either by bank transfer or a payment module such as Paypal which you can link from your listing.
Rating: ***** Easy to navigate, simple stylish design, delivers results
Notes if you are a renter
The location of rental properties is varied with listings in 103 countries from Belgium to Tuvalu. The design is a little old school and the categorisation once drilled down is a little confusing. In the Spain section, the areas, regions and local areas were all grouped together. I think it is a bit search-unfriendly and could be organised into coasts and islands and then broken down into areas. The listings are comprehensive and detail all the necessary information.
Notes if you are an owner
A good FREE option and as there are not huge amounts of rentals available, if you have a well placed listing it could be a very good place to find potential renters for your property. It is easy to set up and update a listing, lacks rental features ie calender, payments.
Rating: **** Varied mix of properties to rent in some exotic destinations, but older style design and lack of features lets it down.
Notes if you are a renter
At first glance it looks like they cover almost everywhere in the world, but on further inspection it seems that many of the countries listed do not have any properties for rent. They do have a very easy navigation system, which takes you through the process with text links to property types and areas. You cant however search by price, which I think would put some people off.
Notes if you are an owner
Their placing in the search engines is excellent and as such their traffic is very high (300000 visitors per month - includes property buyers). Value for money at $19.95 per month and a 30-day money back guarantee if you are not happy with the service.
Rating: **** Simple to use navigation and layout. Search by price and lack of listings could be an issue for users.
More options
US based Vacation Rentals by owner has comprehensive rental listings, more in US popular destinations though there are many countries listings worldwide.
Rental Portals that are Country Specific
www.espanabreaks.com - Prices from £2.26 per week with 50000 visitors per month, this portal has great Spanish Coverage
If you use or would like us to rate any other rental property portals, please contact us.
Denise Luff said,
May 23, 2006 @ 2:20 pm
I use Holiday Sun Direct. I find the service very personal and helpful. They have a number of properties on there. I have been to two in Spain and once to Prague. Both times we were more than satisfied.