I filled up pretty well last year with vacationrentals.com listings and a little bit of Craigslist, mass emailing to old customers, and Facebook work. I have quite a few more summer gaps this year (even though Spring was better than last year), and vacationrentals.com inquiries are way down. I actually paid for a homeaway.com listing for my most expensive property, and that doesn't seem to be doing much, either. Anything working particularly well this year?
This listing site is pretty good for the money: VacationHomeRentals.com. They always send a bunch our way. I think this year is just a down year. All the VR owners I know aren't doing well this year. I'd also recommend getting on small regional websites. For instance, if you're in the Shenandoah Valley in VA, you could get on ShenandoahCabinRentals.com I've found that the small regional websites send quite a bit of traffic and can be cheap (or free!) to get on.
Thanks! I guess it's actually bad news that everyone is low, since they'll be competing with me with their vacancies, but seems comforting that it isn't my property that now seems unappealing...
I'll spend some time and light up some more local ads and turn vacationhomerentals.com back on.
I feel like I should get more traffic from being pet-friendly. I see there's a site called "bringfido.com" with a free trial period, maybe that'll help. Time to get to work, I guess...
thanks,
-JJ
