We started offering our property in Scotland, through an agency. This outfit listed a lot of properties on their web site, all over Europe, and took the bookings direct.
They were paid 30% commission on our bookings, and also charged the visitors a lump sum on top for a booking fee. They did not know anything about us, or our property, just what we told them.
The visitors got a raw deal - sometimes they had not even been put in touch with us so we could not tell them what they wanted to know.
We sacked the agency within three months and then took it over ouselves. Since then we have sold over forty weeks a year.
If you are trying to find a self catering, vacation rental property on the web it can be confusing.
When you enter a search term such as Vacation rental Self Catering France, you'll get a mass of Directories of properties covering the whole of Europe and and they will crowd out the first pages. You'll have to go to page 6 or more to begin to find owners properties.
One kind of Directory is an agency, and it is difficult to tell which one. These are the warning signs.
Be careful when the agency takes the booking on line, that's the first clue. Next there will be no access allowed to the owners website. After that there will be no owners telephone number, nor address.
You'll be paying absolutely top prices if you use the agencies and most owners will charge you less if you can find their own sites. Sometimes a lot less and the relationship will be very much warmer.
Yet not all directories are agencies. The other kind of directories are fine to use, ones where they put you through to the owner direct. No problem there, and they also have more properties on their books.
Don't use an agency. The only exception to this, might be the local Tourist Board site. Their sites will be over every search term you can think of. They carpet bomb the web with their sites.
Usually they are an agency but very expensive for owners to use. While their commission rates are only 10% or so, quite affordable, they make heavy fixed charges for inspections. These also are controversial in that they usually only measure physical features, such as the amount of wool content in the carpets (I kid you not) and not the view or the location or the warmth of reception. Their sales people on the telephone do not know the properties themselves, they are separate from the inspectors.
But they are the people giving the official grades, of one star to five star. Owners with these grades then use them to get up their prices in line with other graded properties. Here is a typical directory which allows you access to owners web sites and addresses.
Properties in Scotland for late bookings
So take care when using an agency to find your vacation rental property.
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