If your second home abroad sits vacant most of the time, you could be throwing money away unknowingly. With a little thought and attention, letting your property to holidaymakers could bring in some welcome extra income or help you cover its mortgage repayments.
A new guide to letting your second home, written by The Overseas Guides Company, is now available on-line by clicking here. Meanwhile, here are six ways using the internet and social media could help you stay ahead of the rental game:
1. Facebook business page
Whether you have your own website or not, creating a Facebook business page for your rental property can be highly valuable, especially as Google loves listing these pages. It is free to do and creates an additional presence of your holiday home on the internet. If you have a personal Facebook page already set up then it is easy to invite your friends to join and ‘like’ your business page. This will automatically be seen by all of their friends and they will in turn spread the word about your holiday home.
2. YouTube video
Video clips are becoming increasingly effective marketing tools as more people access websites from mobile devices. Youtube is the most visited free video platform on the internet so a great way to spread the word about your rental home. Be sure to include key information about the property in your video. If you don’t have a video recording, there are free on-line tools, such as Animotohave, that let you create a clip using photos.
3. Pay per click advertising
An effective way of placing an advert via a website in front of your target customers, this allows to advertise and pay a small fee only when someone clicks on your ad. Google AdWords and Facebook Ads are the two key methods of applying this technique. That said, for many property-owners, Facebook ads has the edge because it allows you to focus your advertising campaign on a target group of potential guests.
4. Email marketing
Responding quickly to booking enquiries, keeping booked guests up to date with information and communicating with past guests is essential communication and best practice. This can be time consuming but there are free tools that can make this process simple and efficient for you. One example is Mailchimp, which offers subscriptions that enable you to automate all of your communications to potential, current and past guests.
5 Surveys
Different guests’ needs and preferences vary depending on age, background, interests and so on. They can also be influenced by trends. To ensure you’re appealing to your target market and your property is not lacking in any way, ask current and past guests how you could improve your offering. Maybe use a free on-line survey tool, such as Surveymonkey, to help you. Feedback is invaluable and it also demonstrates to repeat guests that you care.
6. Keep your ads updated
Once you’ve listed your property on a rentals website, don’t just sit back and forget about it. Make a habit of regularly checking the information featured in the listing and the photos, updating where necessary – with wireless internet, there’s no excuse for not doing so these days. For example, you may need to point out new attractions in the area, a new flight route or add an especially nice photo you took the last time you stayed at the property.
For details of rentable overseas property for sale, visit the overseas listings on Rightmove Overseas. One way to save money when buying abroad or repatriating renal income is to use a currency specialist when transferring your pounds into a foreign currency, or vice versa. For more information on this, contact Smart Currency Exchange.