Looking for advice and to share tips. Where best to

 We have just started this year and are using Owners Direct. We're happy with it so far

Hi Scott, I have no experience with this, but know from friends who advertised their Homes for rental on the italymag website. They were quite happy with that...just try to contact them maybe!

 I used owners direct as well and got 2 bookings out of it... so I would say not a huge result but I got my money back. Yesterday a company called www.forcetravelclub.co.uk    got in touch with me with the following offer: WEB  LISTING £149 for a 12 month term Text + picture + web link + info form + email to a friend + special offer voucher      I don't think I will do it just now, but maybe its worth checking it...   [admin comment: signatures are not allowed within the community. The community space should not be used for promotional purposes.]

Hi Scott As I live in the UK find the  www.holiday-rentals.co.uk site very good when looking for places to rent. best to go onto those sites and judge for yourself how they portray properties.  

 Don't touch them with a barge pole!! They used to be  Forces Travel and Leisure. Biggest con of the decade as far as I am concerned. They said they were the forces website but very few police I spoke to had heard of it - even my niece who is in the police force. Paid £400 for two year and never got a sniff from anyone and when one guy complained they said they'd been taken over and offered us another two year free - still not a sniff! Another downside was you had no control over the advert either - you had to contact them if you wanted to make any amendments. Holiday-rentals are good as are holidaylettings. Thinking of trying Owners direct this year myself. Lorraine

 Hi Scott7   My sister has just started using Owners Direct for a property near Bagni di Lucca and has had good results.  She recommends keeping your charges reasonable in these difficult times, and it seems to work! Also, take a bit of time with the website entry both text and photographs. Make it stand out from the rest, if possible.   Good luck from   Fabbriche.    

If I'd were you, I would ask for more statistics.  Any website that offers advertising space for accommodation/property owners and other services (as Italymag does with holidays and weddings), should provide a range of statistics which give you a better knowledge  After that, you can judge if it is worth doing it.  I also believe that any advertiser need more tips that could help its listing to reach people. Maybe you should invest a little more time and plan with an expert all the available offers and options to get your  message across. See more examples of advertising campaigns at this page or get in touch with the team.

Lorraine,   thank you for the advice on Force Travel Club! I wasn't very sure myself, but you just nailed the argument! I am with owners direct but I might try holiday rentals next year... althouth it seems to be ever so slighly dearer. I can't complain though, I got 3 bookings out of 4 from owners direct... Paola

I would say that it is better to link up with an Italian agent/partner and pay commission. (I've posted on this in the past). However, if you are going down the purely internet route then I would concur with tmattucci above. This site is very well known in Italy and northern Europe. Its language flipping options give it the edge on purely English language sites in my opinion. I have a number of Italian friends who book/take bookings through this site. The Italians themselves, Switzerland and Germany are the biggest market for rental property in Italy. In terms of visitor figures to Italy, the UK comes in at number five behind Austria. Bank of Italy statistics for 2008 show, (1) Switzerland (2) Germany (3) France (4) Austria (5) UK. If you are focussing purely on the UK market its going to be harder.

Being an American renting in Italy has been made easier with a website called Homelidays.com.  It costs 229 euros per year but has proven to be well worth it. We have on average rented 4 to 5 weeks per summer which has helped with covering our expenses.  The translate several languages to make it easier for renter/owners to communicate.   Hope this helps - have a good day Tony

The best free listing site that we have found so far is www.getawayearth.com It is a very similar looking site to the likes of owners direct and holiday-rentals except it won't cost you a penny to advertise (for life) if you are one of the first 1000 signed up. At the moment there is somewhere between 250 and 500 properties listed, so you would probably be able to easily get this free.  Andy who runs it is very accommodating and always responds to his emails. You can link your facebook page and your Twitter comments to your listing and if you have a video of your property you can embed that into the listing as well. You can also put your website address on the listing for all to see.  In our opinion it is the most professional free listing site that we have come across so far. John & Toni

Thank you, I will sign up! I also decide to advertise on the new ryan air web site, but I am not quite sure if it was a good idea... the site design is apalling... time will tell!

  My girlfriend and I rent our place out through holiday-rentals.co.uk and holidaylettings.co.uk, both of which cost just under £250 for a year. We rented our place out for around 12 weeks last year from enquiries from these sites. We can't recommend them enough. Both are equally valuable in terms of generating enquiries, but the holiday-rentals online calender is much better. We have promo codes for anyone wanting to sign up to these sites, which if used means both the person signing up (you) and us get some sort of free extras (more photos, or a few months free... it changes regularly). If you'd like the code for either site, just send a personal message and we'll get back to you asap. For any future readers of this thread, it's well worth getting your place online for early January, as this is when about a 3rd of our enquiries for the summer come through. I will warn that it can take up quite a lot of time responding to emails, and organising contracts etc. Good luck with it!

  P.S. some of the free listing sites ask you to put in your propertie's exact address. I'd advise against this, as the availability calender + dates it's not booked = advertisement to thieves.

  Hello David, Site is www.homelidays.com I do believe, however, that if you know of a good local Italian agent, then it may be better to link up with them. Concentrating purely on the UK rental market could be a mistake. July and August is the main market with a window in October when the Swiss and Germans have two weeks of school holidays. A lot of Italians will now have already booked up but two things that can make a difference are air conditioning and an outdoor shower. Good luck.

 David.it48, holidaylettings.co.uk have a whole section of owner advice, which I believe anyone (even non-signed-up-types) can view. I think we got a blank contract from there too... Make sure you have insurance which covers tenants (we're with intasure).