Past and Current Blogs - Oregon Vacation Rentals by Owner

Friday, February 11, 2011

Advertising - Thinking outside the box

Some people believe craigslist and vacation rental classified sites like this one are the only way to advertise your vacation rental. This isn't true at all. Of course more advertising always helps and this site will generate you leads but it will not provide you with as many leads as you would like. The first thing you have to do is create your own personal site. This doesn't have to be very fancy but simply something that you can point customers easily to for more information. You can even us Read more ...

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

New trends in marketing your rental

There has been an uprising in the last couple years of social networking sites. With this has introduced a whole new idea of advertising websites using tools like Facebook. You may have never thought of advertising your vacation home on Facebook but people are now finding this as a valuable tool at their hands. So how do you use Facebook to help advertise your rental. Well you can do this in a few different ways. The first thing to do is to create your business profile page. Once you have cre Read more ...

Saturday, January 29, 2011

How to travel on a budget

Traveling can be a fun an enjoyable experience but if you have a big enough family, prices can add up tremendously throughout your trip. With some thoughfull planning, you can save thousands of dollars on your next vacation. This all depends on if you are willing to take a few compromises. At the same time this might be the only way for you to take that long deserved vacation. By following these simple tips, you are sure to save thousands of dollars. Even if you cant follow them all, you still m Read more ...

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Creating a bullet proof vacation home

After renting out your home for a year, or even less, you'll start to notice the damages on your home. It's not necessarily one renter, sometimes it is, but its the overall extensive and hard use done by several different renters. You'll be looking at your carpets, and be wanting to get them cleaned every month in order to keep them in top shape. Walls will start looking grungy from people touching, throwing beer bottles, and other random things people do. Your yard will probably be partly overg Read more ...

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

A lot of views, not a lot of rentals

When looking at your page stats on both our site as well as other stats make sure you interrupt them all very carefully. If you notice you are getting a lot of page views but not a lot of inquiries this can tell you a lot about your vacation rental. Here are the top reasons that we find when we see this is happening. - Not enough pictures - Not enough details - Overpriced rates - Descriptions don't represent the house correctly - Lack of features within the house - Email address isn't be Read more ...

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Keeping track of bookings

Even though we are in the digital age, it still doesn't surpass good old hard copies of everything. I have had many different options to do my bookings completely digital. I have even though about incorporating into this very site a booking management system. All you would have to do then is answer questions to customers. It would allow you to not have to worry about booking overlays or anything. The problem with this is your relying on something that could fail. Or you might not have internet a Read more ...

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Find a Cheap Vacation Rental

Finding a cheap vacation rental can be a really simple task if you approach it from the right way. You've already completed the first step by choosing to go with a rental rather than a hotel. When doing your search look for things that you could live without. For instance, it doesn't really matter if your rental is beachfront as one that is a few rows back will take just as long to get to the beach but you'll be saving tons instead. If you are looking for one on Mt. Hood or a sim Read more ...