Rentals France - back to the future
October 22, 2007
Ten years ago I started a vacation rentals Internet site which grew and grew to the leading site for Rentals in France - two years ago I teamed up with a bunch of incompetant fools and the site is now a worthless waste of space. Well, my non-competitive restrictions are over and I plan to start again and make a better site offering more services and, best-of-all, it will be free for everyone, owners and renters.
Here is an outline of my plan…
I have simplified all my thoughts and focused on one objective - I want to create (recreate) a vacation rentals service website.
The aim is to build a community service where anyone who has a property they wish to rent for vacation visitors will use the service and tools - free - and a site where anyone wanting to rent a vacation property will come to look for them.
Revenue is from display advertising - there are no fees or charges for owners or renters, large corporate “owners” will pay for advertising - there can also be extra services which can be charged for, such as credit card services, online accounts management, central booking services etc.
I wish to start with France as I know the market and have personal contact with over 1000 owners I can prime the pump with.
Another aim is to “brand” the service, so the trading name is critical - the first job is to fix the name of this brand. I have a number of URLs registered and some are eight years old - I prefer to avoid generic words, although I am always tempted by the seo advantage - a simple and established url could be www.nizas.com - means nothing but is the epitome of a holiday village. I also like www.2337.com (spells beer) as numbers are getting popular now. I have registered www.AllRentalsFrance.com and www.AllFranceRentals.com plus the usual raft of other daft names I get carried away with
A lot of the features of my old rentalsfrance.com site are what I think should be included from the start, except there is no fee or payment for the listing or lead processing. The feedback and lead sharing features as well as calendar and booking services.
With no fees or charges to anyone, this means someone looking for a rental can make one application and also ask for their enquiry to be “posted” as a more general enquiry for similar properties of similar dates - no direct contact detail are displayed of course and responses are sent back though our pages to these enquiries from owners - this of course amplified the page views and as the demographics of the owner and enquirer are known then advertising relevance is strong on these pages.
All listings are available as feeds and syndication to other paid sites can be offered as a service - I have spoken to some and we could negotiate a discount of up to 50 percent for bulk advertising, passing some of this on to owners - so one service could be “list with five leading advertising sites, only enter your details once with us and get a 25 percent discount off their normal charges and use our central calendar and booking engine to handle your enquiries.
My aim is to make a real community site where feedback, friendships and shared knowledge can be developed - people looking for rentals can team up - comments on properties (moderated) can be shown - through other apps services to Facebook and some of the travel Web2 sites, shared information about places, restaurants (chefmoz) festivals etc etc can be integrated with every property and town listing - this is organic and done by the members through the community interface, not done by us, there are numerous (hundreds) community and wiki sites out there with specialist stuff about places, services, eating etc which can be integrated and which we can feed as well.
The hidden agenda to this rentals services site, especially in France, is the real-estate sales opportunities that can be developed synergistically from this - most property purchasers start as vacation renters - build and hold this community and you can have a strong loyal client base - I always wanted to develop in parallel with rentals the real estate services and I would like this thought to be kept to the forefront of this project.
The first step is to replicate the old rentalsfrance site and input the owners who have stayed loyal to me - about 600 who have confirmed acceptance of this plan and where I have all the database tables. This primes the pump for the first part of the site - I can then invite about 1200 more to join. Next is to attract through my contacts with major vacation companies a couple of big advertisers with a hook of special rates and I can get some leading portals to take the first feeds to give them a rental section on their site (shared advertising commission on click-throughs from their site.
So, that is my brief outline - now I need some people to work with, if you are interested in working with me on this please contact me.
Comment by Cathy Russell
I will certainly access your web site for rentals and will tell all my friends!
Comment by Ian Waudby
Hi Tony, I am sure owners of properties wishing to find holiday renters will obviously use your services. I don’t doubt for one moment that advertisers or sponsors will be also very interested.
As a prospective renter/buyer I found your Nizas website years ago using Google and whatever URL you decide on, appearing on Mr Googles first page, preferrably near the top, is a MUST.
But then you knew that didn’t you…
Ian Waudby…. ( welcome back)
Comment by David Cloutier
Tony:
Sure we would be interested. We currently get almost no bookings from the idiots who over your rentalsfrance site. I’ve also included that link.
http://www.rentalsfrance.com/languedoc-roussillon/la_robine/1216.html
David Cloutier and Lyn de Souza
desouza-cloutier@sympatico.ca
Comment by John Pedler
When you start up, we will use it for our flat in Sarlat, Dordogne.
So keep in touch
John
Comment by René-Claire
Understanding the endeavor, it’s not clear (to me) what kind of participation you seek.
Is it the business model you are remaking? Are you looking to upgrade the interface, etc.?
Or you are happy with all that and are seeking new listers to participate.
I’m curious and interested.
Best,
Comment by Jason Satterthwaite
As above not had one single booking from rentalsfrance site since !
Comment by Anne
You KNOW we’re already on board, Tony! Can’t wait til you get the site up and running - we want to be first in line
Anne & Kirk
Comment by Ray Rowland
Tony, as an annual user of such sites to locate a suitable French holiday rental property for the last 6/7 years, I look fwd. to one hosted/run by someone who actually knows something about it !
More than happy to give feedback having trawled through scores of similar sites and probably thousands of properties in the past.
Biggest bugbear is having to apply to individual renters rather than having a way of posting my requirements and having those requirements posted/advertised to the widest possible audience of property owners
Comment by Helen
Tony, you are placing a lot of emphasis on ad sales. I have no idea how much money you need to break even, or even move into profit from - but if adfunding is core to the sustainability of the project can you get into partnership with a web ad sales agency or someone who can sell ads for you? Good luck with it all though!
Comment by Charles
hi tony - you are a pro so it will work - i will definately place a listing and tell all my expat property owner contacts about your project - all the best - charles - http://www.chateaunearparis.com
Comment by david nicholls
Look forward to registering our property with you when you are up & running.
Comment by Trevor Hodgkiss
Tony,
Delighted to read your plans, count me in for our two gites, although we won’t be ready for 12 months.
Trevor
Comment by Ric Ritchison
Tony–
I hope the business with the ad thing works…my only advice is to stay focused…we will be glad to stay in touch and hope to visit someday…
Comment by Jacky Rolls
Look forward to checking this out when available. Looking for holiday rental in Pointou Charente region over the next few years for property searches - with a view to buying in that area for holidays/possible relocation.
Hoping you won’t just be covering the far South!!
Comment by alan chapman
hi Tony,7 weeks since moving to france,managed at last to get on line this week.Checking 650 plus emails saw my first ever Facebook email, which was from you,poor navigation on my part,hit the wrong buttons and promptly deleted you,nothing personal.Please try again,might even get it right next time.
Regards,Alan