Hi all…

Just finished collating all my data for 2009 with regard to my apartment rental…

In 2009 I ran an advert on

Owners Direct (Cost £180.00 Approx)
Holiday Lettings (Cost £250.00 Approx)
Travel Library (Cost FREE)
Eyes On Spain (Cost Was FREE but now £45.00 Approx)
Personal Web Site (Cost £125.00 plus £25.00 / Year Approx)

Plus an assortment of other free sites…

The key info is here…

OD / 17 Enquiries / 0 Booking / £180 Invest for Rental income £0 / Profit after Clean and Key drop £180 / Loss

HL / 27 Enquiries / 1 Booking / £250 Invest for Rental income £199 / Profit after Clean and Key drop £190 / Loss

TL / 12 Enquiries / 3 Bookings / £000 Invest for Rental income £2600 / Profit after Clean and Key drop £2200 / Profit

EOS / 7 Enquiries / 2 Bookings / £000 Invest for Rental income £1650 / Profit after Clean and Key drop £1390 / Profit

Own Site / 23 Enquiries / 9 Bookings / £150 Invest for Rental income £7230 / Profit after Clean and Key drop £6100 / Profit


For my own site I did also spend a further £100 on cards and spent a few Saturdays distributing them while out walking…

My Conclusion….

My figures above have now proven to me that Vacation Rental Websites are not worth the cost…

Rough figures to look at…

HL… 35000 plus + adverts they claim…

Basic advert cost £220 + VAT…

That is over £7 million revenue….

Profit margin I can only dream about….

Time to do your own site and stop making these overnight millionaires into billionaires….

Even Travel Library which is free outperformed HL and OD…

My own site murdered both….

I believe that Vacation rental sites need to change how they work and charge…

I have today discontinued my paid adverts…

To take an example… HL Classic ad now devalued by Premium ad both of which have gone up in price in an even more competitive market where there are less and less renters and more and more properties…

OWNERS…. WAKE UP….

Set up your own sites… Work with other owners on your complex…

My gripe over for 2009

Wishing all a fantastic 2010

John.
http://www.benatalaya.co.uk

 I am new to this but I felt this would be the case. It is nice to have my feelings confirmed. I have written a small web site. How did people find your web site, was it via your leaflet posting on your walks or was it left to chance? Thanks Kevin

Hi Kevin

Can I suggest before you do too much marketing that you purchase a domain name? They are cheap as chips and also give you an @yourdomain email address. Makes it look a bit more professional imo, plus if you move your hosting elsewhere, you can take the name with you and you haven't wasted all that expensive advertising getting the old name known!!

Mark