For those renting out their apartment

Hi,

As the golf course is nearing completion and more facilities are being added to the resort all the time I'm sure we're all hopeful that we'll see an improvement next year in our rental yields. We were thinking about putting small classified ads in some Golf magazines and websites at the beginning of next year for our apartment, but then I came up with an idea.

Why don't some of us pull our resources and form a club or society, and put bigger more professional adverts in these type of websites? You can get an idea on the sort of website I'm talking about here: -

http://www.golf-monthly.co.uk/

The idea would be that we'd share in the cost of advertising our properties in bigger 'Condado de Alhama' adverts. Every member in the club would pay a monthly subscription which would be used to pay for adverts and other costs (e.g. web domain). The monthly subscription would be dependant on the number of members and thr number and size of advertisements we place, but I'm thinking of maybe about 20 pounds per month as a ballpark figure.

We could have a website for the club that would give more information on the resort and the apartments to potential renters which would be given on the advert. I created our own website for our apartment (see link below) and could quite easily make something similar for the club to keep costs down. It's not got many bells and whistles but it does the job, I think. Naturally if anyone with more web design experience can make a more professional website and would be willing to do it then I wouldn't stand in their way. :)

We'd of course have to have rules in place to ensure all bookings generated from these ads are allocated fairly among all the members.  For example, one possibility would be to have a rota of all members and whoever was at the top of the list would get first refusal on the next booking we get from an advert. Then of course we'd need to decide if we have a standard agreed rate for each type and size of apartment, or whether each member still set their own rates. If we standardised the rates that will make it easier to respond to enquiries as a quote could be given directly without having to discuss with the owners first. In this case however we'd probably have to set minimum standard requirements (e.g. air-conditioning and cable TV) so we can ensure all potential clients get the same value for their money.

So of course there would be lots of issues that would need to be resolved if this was to be viable but with the good-will of the members I think it could be done.

To ensure total transparency we could set up a specific e-mail address for the group which would be put in the advert and website and to which every enquiry would be sent, and every member would have password access to the e-mail address to monitor these enquiries (though for logistical reasons it would probably be better if we only had one nominated member who replied to enquiries).

The purpose of this thread is NOT to discuss and try to resolve these issues here and now, it's simply to try to gauge the potential interest in starting up this kind of club. If there is enough potential interest then we can start the discussion on how it could be ran and managed via e-mail. I don't know how many members would be required to make this viable, but I suspect it would be something in the region of ten or so if 20 pounds per month is the figure we're looking at.

So, if you think this idea may be of interest to you please PM me or send an e-mail to condado-de-alhama@hotmail.com and I'll get back to you.

 Hi

Though nothing to do with the thread below, Well maybe a little bit.

We were wondering what the traffic is like during the Summer holidays.

We were out end of June, beging of july & the motorways were still almost deserted, as they had been during the winter months

We want to advise users of our apartment about the various areas of interest in the Murcia region & would like to say that the motorways are stress free, but as we have not visited the area at peak times I  am hoping that one of you could advise please.

Thanks

Jan

Hi

Have sent you a p,m,

Regards Craig

Hi,

Have sent you a pm regarding rentals, not the traffic, weather etc, etc!!

Steve.

Hi,

Many thanks to those who responded and sorry for not getting back to you sooner, I thought I'd give it few days to see how much response there was to my post.

Unfortunately I can't say it was an overwhelming success, only a total of 4 have expressed an interest. Due to the amount of work that would be involved in getting this up and running and then managing it, I just don't think that's enough.

I think it's a shame as I'm pretty confident it would have worked. At 20 quid a month you'd only have to get one or two bookings a year from it to break even and that's a very modest target even in the current economic climate .

Maybe once the golf course is up and running there might be more interest in this kind of initiative, so perhaps we can try again next year to get it off the ground.

Anyway, thanks again to those who showed an interest and sorry that, at the moment anyway, there doesn't seem to be enough interest. In the meantime good luck and hope you meet you all soon at Condado!

All the best,

George.

i would be interested in helping you out with this idea george and will help by doing drop off adverts in the condado post boxes so that we can contact the whole condado market.i am moving full time to spain on 5th december and have already been approachd by 2 companies to work with them re sales and lettings.my number 1 aim is to set up a comprehensive golf apartement letting service and as i dont see anyone else doing this then i think we have a captive market.i aim to advertise in all the main golf newspapers and magazines in the uk.if anyone has any ideas on this or is in advertising then please pm me.george i will pm you with my contact details.

Thanks George.

Well, maybe the idea isn't dead after all. :)

So if there's anyone else out there who thinks they might be interested please let me know either by PM or e-mail.

Remember of course you're not making any commitment at this stage, so even if you think you may be interested but have got doubts or reservations please let me know as maybe they can be resolved in the discussions.

Hi again,

Thanks to those who contacted over the weekend and again today voicing a potential interest in this. I think there's now definately enough people potentially interested to get the discussion going so I'll be in contact with you all over the next few days to get the ball rolling. If you've contacted me by PM and not yet given me an e-mail address please do so as I'm compiling a mailing list for the discussions.

Looking forward to speaking to you soon.

In the meantime if anyone else is potentially interested plase feel free to contact me.

Regards,

George.

Hi there - just thought I'd bring this back to people's attention

There are a number of us who have intend going ahead with this

Anyone else should make contact as soon as possible

PB

Thanks for the plug Pete, there has been a flood of enquiries last night and this morning. :)

Keep 'em coming!

There are now 15 potential members involved in our ongoing discussions on how the association will be run, and it's now beginning to take shape. The plan is to have the founder members committed by the end of this month. December will then be spent assigning member roles and planning, then it will hopefully be up and running at the beginning of next year. 

Note that it will be more expensive to join after 1/12/2009 so if you think you'd be interested PM me with you e-mail address to be involved in these discussions. You've got nothing to lose.

Hi George,

Cracking idea, count me in, hope i'm not to late, have sent you pm with email, hope to hear from you

regards  nige

Hi Nigel,

Thanks for your interest, and no it's not too late. I've sent you the details by e-mail.

Thanks again and cheers,

George