Web sites offer way to market vacation home
Published by news-press.com on April 12,
2004
The Boston Red Sox played a role in bringing a Web-based vacation rental broker here last summer.
WeNeedaVacation.com is a site catering to time-starved couples and families looking for privately owned vacation digs.
Its clients are vacation property owners who run their own rentals.
The cost is $192 a year for a Web page and four photos. Two-month and six-month trial options are also available.
The site doesn’t book reservations or accept deposits, though. Guests make their arrangements with the owners — by phone, email or standard mail.
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Owners Jeff and Joan Talmadge launched the site six years ago to rent out their Cape Cod vacation home, soon adding listings for the islands of Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. It’s since grown to nearly 2,000 listings.
Like other ardent Sox fans, the Talmadges yearned to catch some spring training games. While here, they wanted the privacy and comforts of a home or condo. After a frustrating, 20-hour search of 10 or more Web sites last season, they gave up — and booked a hotel room.
“We had to scroll through all of these listings,” said Joan.
“Maybe 5 percent of the sites had (availability) calendars,” added Jeff.
They wished they could use their own Web site. Software designed by Jeff’s company, Talmadge Solutions Group of Wellesley, lets people search for rentals that meet all of their criteria, and also are available for their specific vacation dates.
Soon the Talmadges were thinking about expanding WeNeedaVacation.com. “We felt a natural affinity between Cape Cod and the islands and the Gulf Coast of Florida,” Jeff said.
Kathy Jones, a Talmadge client and the former owner of a real estate agency on Cape Cod, cheered them on. She’d moved to Naples in 1998, and had bought vacation rental property here.
When the Talmadges decided to market their site to all of Florida’s Gulf Coast, they enlisted Jones to run the operation from her new home in St. James City.
The site has plenty of rivals, including CyberRentals.com, VRBO.com, ResortQuest.com and Gulfcoastrentals.com.
That doesn’t include chamber of commerce sites. “Some people will join the chamber only for the purpose of putting their property on our Web page,” said D.J. Petruccelli at the Fort Myers Beach chamber. It costs $250 year for membership.
Since launching the site in mid-August, WeNeedaVacation.com has acquired about 270 listings for Florida, but that’s a sliver of the total pie.
For example, The ResortQuest site lists about 2,500 properties on the west coast of Florida — from Sarasota to Marco Island, said Ben Edwards, regional manager.
“Our Web site acts like an Expedia or a Travelocity. You can book on our site 24 hours a day,” Edwards said.
Unlike WeNeedaVacation.com, ResortQuest sells a more complex service. To be listed on the Web site, clients also contract for management and maintenance services. The company charges a percentage of gross rentals.
For their part, the Talmadges think they’ve built a better mousetrap with superior personal service for do-it-yourself property owners — and that time and exposure to sunny Florida will prove it.