Operating a vacation home is similar to operating a small business. Your potential customers need to get aware about it, they need to know that it actually exists. As it is the case with almost every business, this is done via advertising and promotion.

A very effective way to advertise your vacation rental is the Internet. In a recent study conducted by us, 79% of the survey respondents stated that their most effective advertising channel is the World Wide Web. So the first step for promoting your vacation home would be to create an online presence that provides all the required info such as availability calendar, photo, map etc.

The easiest and quickest way to create an online presence is to advertise your property on vacation rental marketplaces. That will not only give your property a place on the web, but also attract visitors to view and book your property. In fact, 92% of vacation rental owners already list their property on marketplaces and 67% consider them to be their most significant promotion tool.

Interestingly, 93% of homeowners use more than one marketplace to market their property and 66% of homeowners advertise their vacation homes on more than 5 marketplaces.

Clearly, there are many marketplaces out there. Usually, they charge owners yearly advertising fees of up to $300 in return for booking inquiries. While others do not charge anything at all. In general, owners pay an average of $700 for having their properties listed on such sites. Half of the survey respondents consider these expenses to be too high, yet the other 50% is happy with the return given.

Thus, not every marketplace delivers enough booking enquiries that justify their annual fees. Getting informed about the size of their vacation rental portfolio, popularity and search engine rankings is crucial before advertising on any paid marketplace.

Now with the tools of the internet it is so easy to market your second home as a vacation rental property. There are many great vacation rental websites to advertize rental property on the internet to help increase exposure. In my area it can really make a difference on the amount of income an owner can make compared to working with a full service property management company who will usually take 50 percent of the income.

When looking to buy your second home vacation rental property, you need to be careful and make sure it is allowed in the neighborhood you are looking at. In our area of Park City Utah, there are certain neighborhoods that do not allow short term vacation rentals in their CC&Rs. If you buy in an area that does not allow it then you take the risk that a neighbor may complain and force you to stop. This is very important if you are relying on this extra income to help offset the cost of the home ownership.

One way to help avoid running into this problem is to work with a local real estate agent in the area you are considering who knows the local neighborhoods well. I have found in our area that agents who come in from out of the area to help work with buyers simply do not know as a result some buyers have bought properties that they later found that they could not rent out as a vacation rental.