on November 13, 2014, 11:17 am, in reply to "Re: Sites to check for rentals"Edited by board administrator November 13, 2014, 2:06 pm
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I will put the quick answers on top, then more below for those interested. My response is dramatic, these issues are both current and old and need to be addressed IMO. Yes, there are some flat out dishonest renters (only a couple) and I do have proof. The message board is the best thing to happen to renters. I would like to see it be the primary method of looking, as it gives ALL of those with rentals a chance to respond, even those without advertising on the rental sites. If it gets to be bothersome (it is far from it) then I would create a part of the message board just for rental inquiry's. ------------- More words I built the first website for rentals in La Manzanilla www.lamanzanilla.info in 2001 back when the rentals were begging for business. It was part of a website with photos and information on La Manzanilla. I considered it to be a community project with a bit of income to pay for the many many hours I spent making it. The only income was $250 pesos per year from the rentals, that is like 5 cents per day and has not changed price since then. Within a year or two I started getting emails from people looking to buy here. I negotiated with the current realtors with little to no success, realized I had my own way of doing business and started doing real estate. VRBO (Vacation rentals by owner) came along and some of the rentals advertised there even though the cost was more than 5 times what I was charging. They used calendars so I added calendars for the rentals on the website. I then (with a lot of work) discovered a calendar which I adapted to list all of the rentals and their calendars sorted by location and cost all on one page. The idea was to make it so someone looking for a rental could go to that page and with very little effort find the rentals which were available with their requirements and price range and contact the rental directly, which would cut out the middle person and get them (and the rental) the best deal possible. I don't really consider myself to be altruistic but this was an altruist dream! Fair, direct...beautiful! But it relied on the cooperation of those in charge of the rentals (rentalers) and individual rentals to work. The way most of the rentalers and rentals work is if I send them a renter then I get a percentage of the rental fee. There is actually quite a bit of money to be made this way and it was the fundamental stumbling block to the master calendar working, there was a reason not to keep the calendar updated, especially on the most popular days as that got those seeking rentals to either email or call them. If the rental they inquired about was not available then the rentalers or rental could parlay that person into cash by recommending them to another rental. side note: Personally I never wanted a commission for helping someone find a rental, again, not because I am altruistic but because it was just a favor I was doing for both the seeker and provider and I didn't have the time or interest to keep track of what I was owed. I used to get a hundred or more emails per year asking for assistance, I would just give them the information to contact one of the rentalers or rentals, or forward the email to a rentaler and forget about it. back to the story I really worked hard trying to get people to keep their calendars up as without their cooperation the system failed. It didn't work for the reasons noted above and it was that frustration which came out when Nancy's post gave me the place to vent that old grievance. Now there are several places to advertise rentals and I would imagine the amount of money spent by the rentals to get renters is over $20,000 usd per year. This is actually the choice of the rentals, every time a new place to promote their rental comes out they go for it hoping to get renters. It works for a while but then there are a lot of rentals on the "new" site and they are right back in the boat of competing with the other rentals that they were in before they grabbed at the short term solution. That is a good chunk of money and could be put to good use if all the rentals agreed to promote their rental in one cheap central location. That is a dream which is very unlikely to happen, but with solidarity it could be a reality. Renters looking for rentals on the message board is fairly new and accidental. It has turned out to be the most fair method of putting renters and rentals together and I for one am smiling about it. Finally a way to bypass the rental game they were being directed to play. Well, I am sure there are parts I am leaving out but that is enough for now. onward |
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