How to Market your Florida Vacation Rentals Home

So, you?ve gone ahead and purchased your perfect vacation home. You found the right home, in the best location and at your budgeted price. Now you need to start attracting vacationers to view your property and book it, thus giving you some much needed income to fund your second home investment.

How do you present your home to the widest audience possible at the lowest price? Conventional printed media is one route to consider ? local/national newspaper ad?s, specialist vacation magazines, flyers on the office notice board etc. Whilst these can be pretty effective in their own right, taking out an advert in a newspaper can be rather costly. And the wider the distribution of the newspaper, the higher the cost of advertising within their pages.

With over 90% of all vacationers now doing their initial research of where to go via the internet, the novice vacation home owner should consider advertising their home through one of the many vacation home directories which populate the web. The principle idea of these directories is that it allows private vacation homeowners to showcase their property with pictures and in some cases, a virtual tour, accompanied by lots of text detailing what the home has to offer. The potential vacationer can then browse these details at leisure and, if they like what they see, contact the homeowner direct and enquire about renting the home.

There are many of these websites out there and a vacation home owner should do their own research by viewing a few and comparing things such as layout, ease of navigation and price to list their home, before making a final decision. As a rule of thumb, quality websites which will bring the homeowner a good amount of enquiries charge anywhere from $75 to $300 per annum to list the home within their pages. Some established websites you may want to check out and compare include www.greatrentals.com

www.vacationhomes2rent.com and www.vrbo.com

Once you?ve decided which directory you wish to join, here are some key pointers you should consider:

* Make sure you select a directory that specializes in properties in the state that your home is in. For example, if you purchased in Florida, you should advertise on a Florida specific vacation directory. * Include on your listing as many excellent quality pictures of the interior of your home and outside area/view from lanai as you are allowed. A picture truly paints a thousand words. * Consider investing in a virtual tour to showcase the home. These usually cost around $150 but you?ll have it for life. Including a link so potential vacationers can literally ?walk around the home? is a big bonus. * Tell the truth when you write about the home; if you can?t see the ocean unless you lean off the lanai and strain your neck it is not an ocean view! Presenting it this way will only lead to disappointed clients. Disappointed clients means non-repeat business. * When you write your text onto the directory, make it fresh text and not something you copied from another website or what you maybe published elsewhere on the Internet. Fresh text means new content on the web and is very much more attractive to search engines who are constantly seeking new information. Old text is old news and not very interesting to search tools such as Google and Yahoo.

For the new vacationer homeowner wishing to present their home to the biggest audience at a minimal cost, a good vacation home directory should be their first choice. Remember, if you attract only one rental for the year based on your advert, a week?s rent will pay for a whole year?s advertising on a website and is best value for money for the savvy second home owner.

IC endorses Keely Smith of Gulf Coast Real Estate who is a partner in Florida vacation homes to rent and Florida pages, visit us and discover why there is no other place like Florida!