Financial Matters • Marketing Your Vacation Rental

Pricing Your Home

by Elizabeth Weedon
Written by Elizabeth Weedon
5/5 - (4 votes)

front 20707When pricing your vacation rental home, it’s very important to get it right. Naturally, those of you who have been renting for a few years have a pretty good idea what your weekly rate should be, but it’s still a good idea to re-evaluate each year to be sure you are not asking too little or too much.

Joan’s previous post, The Pricing Dilemma: Go Up, Go Down, or Stay the Same, provides a comprehensive look at pricing strategies including ways to determine the market value of your home, whether you should change your rates for the following season, how to “tier” your prices relative to which weeks are most popular, etc.

Those of you who have never rented your home before, however, don’t have a benchmark price to work from and may not be very familiar with the rental market in your area. We suggest two options:

  1. The Do-It-Yourself option is to search for “your home” on our site to determine the best price based on your competition. The added benefit this exercise provides is to acquaint you with the search process so that you see how our site works to direct vacationers to your listing.
  2. Hire us to perform a professional Competitive Pricing Analysis. After learning about your property and its location, we will compare it to your competition to determine the right price. We can even offer on-site consultations, allowing us to better know your property and for you to benefit from the advice and recommendations from one of our experts in person. Our pricing clients have told us that they enjoy not only the confidence it brings in their pricing but also the ability to claim that their home has been professionally priced. The cost of an off-site Competitive Pricing Analysis is only around $80 and, in addition to pricing recommendations specific to your home, it includes an array of marketing suggestions to ensure  success in booking your home at your asking price.

For further tips related to pricing, take a look at our other posts including When to lower your prices, the Most popular amenities, and “Tiering” your weekly prices.

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About the author

Elizabeth Weedon

Elizabeth Weedon - Although I’ve worked for WeNeedaVacation.com since 2008, I’ve been a loyal homeowner on the site since early 1998, just a few months after the website was launched by the Talmadges. I grew up summering on the Vineyard and managed my family's rental home there since the mid-1980’s. I’m passionately devoted to the Vineyard – and to WeNeedaVacation, which I credit with enabling me to hold onto the special property that has been in our family for nearly a century. An enthusiastic member of the WNAV Homeowner Support Team, I endeavor to keep my finger on the pulse of the Cape and Islands vacation rental industry so that I can provide homeowners advice about how to ensure their booking success with us. With owner Joan Talmadge, I am also responsible for editing and writing much of the text on our website, our monthly newsletters, and Homeowner Blog posts.

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