Maybe you can get some rentals

[whosyodaddy]

Kurt will probably reposition this post (and he probably should), but I wanted to post it here because this is where the people who need to see it are.

I came up with an idea about 3 years ago when I became frustrated with the commission rate I was being charged by my rental agency. Why not take the vrbo idea and localize it? I envisioned something called www.seagrovebyowner.com (go to the site and look at it) . Not being very computer savy, I went to someone and paid them (handsomely) to develop the site and to build an interface for the data. After about year of fooling with it, it was ready. I still think that this is a good idea. My problem is that I have not been able to devote the time resources to get it off the ground properly. I have even bought ads in Southern Living Magaizine and Montgomery Living Magazine. I have gotten some decent traffic to the site and the few listings I have seem to get some response.

But, I wrestle with keeping it or letting someone else build it. I think there is some money to be made here (that's why I have been hesitant).

Sorry for the rambling, but what I am trying to say is that I think I have decided to sell it before the opportunity to do this passes by. I don't think I will recover all of my investment (probably about 18k at this point), but I'd love to talk to someone who could also see a little of the vision and would be interested in this.

Kurt, I apoligize for the shameless plug and thank you for letting me post it here.

Terry Barber
334-301-1075

 

[windrift]

Terry, I'm interested in your thoughts because I'm part of this site and probably at present the only Canadian snowbird here. My husband and I would like to rent in this area. Having the site VRBO Seagrove would be an excellent resource for us.
Hopefully it will be a go. And when can we use it?
Lynda

 

[whosyodaddy]

www.seagrovebyowner.com is active right now.... not that many listings at present.... that's what someone needs to do.... get people to list their properties so that when someone such as yourself is looking they have a good representation of the area.

 

[Kurt]

No problem with listing it here like you did a year or so ago. Since you are back, I will post some thoughts. As you have discovered, the type of site you invsion takes much time, money, and a lot of internet marketing knowledge. Every day there are more and more competitors small, medium, and large.

You have to have a lot of properties for rent on a site or people won't come back and you won't get linked from other sites. Meaning it's likely to take a very large budget and a very large amount of time before you're even in a postition to compete with the big boys. They usually start by giving out a lot of free listings just to get content. I believe you tried that and you probably found that even giving away listings doesn't mean they automatically appear, you still have to spend a lot up front.

Focusing local sounds like a neat idea but is not as easy as it sounds, and rental owners and agents have several large well-established options for their ad dollars.

Some of these are reasons I focused on providing exposure on multiple sites with additional content and providing added services such as rental websites, web pages, photos and virtual tours, this forum, local info, photo galleries, etc. (with more to come). It's still evolving.

 

[spinDrAtl]

My question would be what differentiates your site from the others aside from being local? VRBO has just a couple click process to zero in a specific area and sorts by neighborhood or condo complex. Do you have a specific business plan for growing the site and monetizing it?

I know a lot of owners who will sign up for free just to get additional exposure if the process is not cumbersome but depending on the cost and results, may not stick around if payment becomes involved.

I have a simple site I built myself with Front Page a number of years ago just so I could refer friends and neighbors to pictures as we were getting lots of word of mouth referrals. We own multiple properties so I have just added a section for each. It allows me to post links where allowed (such as here) but I have never tried to monetize it.