MAYBE you’ve never thought of yourself as the vacation-rental type — too much like work, right? You have to shop around; when you get pictures, they look like they were taken in 1985. What happens when the electricity goes out and the owner’s four time zones away?
Like, say, the Manhattan real-estate market, vacation rentals were once shrouded in mystery. Central clearinghouse? Forget it.
Everything was localized, details were closely guarded; then there was the fact that renting a home for the holidays seemed prohibitively expensive.
True, they can be. But that’s often because they’re worth it. A home offers more space, more amenities, more options (to cook or not to cook, e.g.), more privacy, less Bill and Joan from Omaha slithering into the hot tub next to you.
While you can still go for that $1,500/night chateau in Breckenridge, the truth is, vacation rentals can actually out-cheap hotels.
“You can get a house in Spain for $45 a night, and another for $450 a night — the market is extremely flexible,” says Alexis de Belloy of HomeAway.com, a listings site.
“On average,” de Belloy says, “a rental is half the cost of a hotel based on square footage.” This is a value that’s especially evident when you’re traveling in a group, facing the prospect of having to book multiple hotel rooms.
Helping to keep prices in check has been an increase in inventory on the part of owners.
“People who only spend 3-6 weeks out of the year in their second home can’t afford to just let it sit there anymore,” according to Eric Horndahl of FlipKey, a rentals site that is majority-owned by hotel ratings giant TripAdvisor.
Of course, those who rent homes have to be willing to take things slow; rare is the rental that allows you to come in just for the night. On average, according to industry statistics, stays are closer to a week in length.
But according to Horndahl, the tide may be turning, with owners looking to compete with hotels; he cites the possibility of 3-day weekends in spots like Cape Cod — off-season, of course.
HomeAway is also working to encourage shorter stay requirements. The site reports that a small percentage of its owners plan to remove minimum-stays altogether this spring.
SURF SPOTS
A RISE in the popularity of vacation rentals has spurred a whole host of new Web sites. Here are the three you need to know about.
FLIPKEY.COM
Proudly part of the TripAdvisor posse, guest reviews are this site’s bread and butter. About half of its 90,000+ listings have them (totally close to 150,000), with that percentage growing every day.
Sample rental: 5-bedroom, 5 bathroom hilltop house in Hilo, Hawaii starts at $55/night (#180295)
What’s to like: Each guest review is verified — in as much as you can police this sort of thing — as are the properties themselves. Thorough background checks and other private-dick methodologies keep member owners and property managers honest.
Could improve: It’s a little thin on listings in Asia, the Pacific and South America.
HOMEAWAY.COM
HomeAway, Inc., represents close to half a million rental properties in 120 countries, divvied up among its brood of Web sites: vrbo.com caters to the seasoned, domestic renter and vacationrentals.com focuses on deals. But homeaway.com — the company’s largest with 185,000 listings — is best for rental virgins.
Sample rental: A 2-bedroom, 2-bath, 1,100 square-foot condo in Phoenix starts at $80/night (#148431)
What’s to like: Tremendous European options.
Could improve: Only a small percentage of rentals can be booked directly online.
RENTALO.COM
Operating under a much larger tent, Rentalo lists hotels and B&Bs in addition to vacation rentals. Its per-month listing fee is 33% lower than on HomeAway and FlipKey, thereby, in theory, attracting more value-minded owners (its inventory tops 200,000 overall).
Sample rental: A 2-bedroom, 2.5-bath Penthouse Apartment in Puerto Vallarta starts at $182/night (#131302)
What’s to like: Great deals, “auto-offer” alerts and an A+ grade from the Better Business Bureau since 2004.
Could improve: Update: one-liner guest comments do exist at the very bottom of some property listings, but nothing that rises to the level of comprehensive reviews. The site’s founder (and former NASA engineer) hopes to change that in the near future.
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