Mortgage

Renting Your Vacation Home Via a News Release

Summer is nearly here. That means warmer weather. It also means tourists will be here (Orlando, in my case) looking for places to stay. Will they perhaps be renting your vacation offering?

Whether or not this is the case in other areas of the country, the inventory of area vacation homes here is better than ever, according to a A+ Vacation Homes, self-described as a major online company offering luxury one to seven-bedroom vacation homes.

How do rental offerings connect with people who want to rent them? A timely question. Obviously, if you have a vacation home to offer, you have to find tenants or you have very immediate problems paying your mortgage.

For A+. the company sends out a press release and hopes news outlets will run some or all of it to tell others of this opportunity. But what about smaller owners such as yourself who either are renting out homes you own or even your own residence (say you have a summer home somewhere that is not quite as hot as Central Florida, at least in the geographic sense)?

Florida is always a “hot” market year-round, whether you are referring to it as a tourist destination or simply climate-wise, of course. But what can you do to fill your rental home this summer (assuming, of course, that you have one to fill)?

First of all, if the big buys like A+ can do a press release. So can you. No mystery here. And you probably don’t need a professional, either. This is a cheap but often effective advertising method.

You can even use buzzwords, ala A+, who points out that a family’s choice of accommodations can “make or break their vacation.” Further, the company hints at your own arguments for your place by pointing out that to have a “vacation to remember” you want a great place. And not something chosen poorly that will leave you “stuck in a tiny, ill-kept, out-of-the-way place.”

If you want to do a news release, you can learn about selling points from this big company.

Their selling points can be yours. For example, they point out that luxury rental homes are more affordable than generally believed. This is actually not hype but true in many areas outside the prime vacation destination of Orlando. In addition, you don’t need me to convince you that a home (with a kitchen and a pool, perhaps) is far more comfortable than a hotel room (though I know this is the case from personal experience).

Other points you can make in your pitch (copying them) include the vital one of location. Hopefully, you are near the major attractions craved by all tourists such as theme parks. But if you are not, you will have to make the best of it by saying peace and quiet, for one example, as the main attraction of your locale.

It’s recommended you be a specific as you can in your release. For example, if you have a five-bedroom home for say $150 a night, you can easily make comparisons to advantages (kitchen, more space for the kids, etc.) compared to a mere room rental.

Everyone assumes that a moderately priced hotel includes cleaning, but you might also make the point that housekeeping at your rental home is daily or weekly, or whatever, to reassure renters that this will not be a problem.

Where do you send your press releases? Check the Internet for local weekly and daily newspapers and travel magazines that might be interested.

If you are still uncomfortable about this advertising method, you can check Internet sources and outlets as well as consider advertising in smaller and less expensive weekly or other “flyer” publications often distributed free to tourists coming to your area.

The major idea is to think out of the box. Out of the box of a small purveyor of a vacation home that piggybacks on the ideas of a major provider of similar homes who can be a useful guide to your own successful efforts. What they have done is successful and there’s no reason to be timid about this type of imitation.

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