We’re currently making some changes to improve the way that enquiry emails are sent to you, specifically the system we use to send them. Why? To make sure your enquiries get to you quickly. Just in case, it is always worth checking your junk/bulk folder in the event that your email provider wrongly identifies our emails.

Some BT and Yahoo email account holders have reported delays when receiving enquiries to their email inbox. We forward lots of emails each week and some are being wrongly identified as junk/bulk email by these providers – the emails are held temporarily until your provider releases them. The updates we’ve made should help to solve this problem.

Your Inbox within your Holiday Lettings account hasn’t changed, but here’s a quick reminder of how it works:

• All enquiry emails and conversations are also logged in your Holiday Lettings Inbox for your security
• You can reply to the enquiry from your email account – just hit reply – or from your Holiday Lettings Inbox. Either way, we forward all emails and attachments to your guest
• Guest email addresses and telephone numbers are stored securely within your Holiday Lettings Inbox

Why we’ve stepped up security

When we send enquiry emails to you, the email address is ‘encrypted’. This means that, should a hacker manage to access your email account, they won’t be able to see the guest’s real email address and take money from the guest while posing as the owner.

As all conversations are stored in your account, you’ll always have a comprehensive record of all email conversations between you and your guest. If you delete an email by accident, you’ll still have a record of it in your account.

The post Holiday Lettings enquiry emails appeared first on Need More Rentals.

According to the poll of 275,000 worldwide holiday rental properties released by Trip Advisor, travellers also rate UK holiday rental accommodation as some of the best in the world.

Properties in Somerset and Gloucestershire topped the UK list, both on 4.8 points, closely followed by East Anglia, North Wales, East Sussex, Cornwall and Kent. The lowest score for the UK was London, however this was only marginally below the worldwide average figure.

The post Gloucestershire and Somerset amongst top rental locations appeared first on Need More Rentals.

At the same time, according to figures released by the Ministry of Development, 9,502 Spanish properties were bought by overseas investors during the second quarter of this year, representing a 12% rise (the highest figure since 2008). Alicante, followed by Malaga, Barcelona, Tenerife and the Balearic Islands remain the most popular locations.

The post Spanish property value continues to drop appeared first on Need More Rentals.

You might have heard, a big change is in the works. We are in the process of developing a more secure form of communications where both owners and travelers can be confident they are talking to each other.

We have been listening to feedback and want to hear more from you.

Our goal is to fight phishing by designing a great solution for improved communications while minimizing the impact of the changes. Phishing is serious threat to the internet and vacation rentals are a high ticket item attractive to thieves. It’s hard to understand real impact. Until your email account has been phished, and travelers have been defrauded using your email account, phishing can seem like “someone else’s problem.”

While the purpose of these changes is to bring you improved security, you will benefit from:
Time Savings
Improved on-the-go access to inquiries and reservation tools
Easier access to conversation histories with guests
Guest profiles to help you vet guests up front

Click on the link below to walk through some of the screens are working on – by no means are these screens final and your input will help us improve them. We’d like to hear what you think so let us know what doesn’t make sense or what you would like to see done differently.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HASC2012

Summary…

The email address will now be from inquiry-notice@homeaway.com instead of your guest (you will not see your guest’s email address).

Owners must login to reply.

When logged in to the HomeAway conversation module owners will see the following features:

Email inbox – Manage your inquiries with the ability to reply, mark as read, add attachments and archive messages.
Templates
Reservation management – e.g. calendar.

Once you send a reply, a traveler will get your response in his/her e-mail inbox. In order to reply back to you, or to accept your quote, the traveler needs to create an account with HomeAway or sign in through Facebook.

The Owner Dashboard and Conversation System will work in your mobile browser/screen.

The post New Owner & Guest conversations proposal by HomeAway appeared first on Need More Rentals.

Nearly three quarters of vacation rental owners (72 percent) who have vacation rental properties where summer is considered the peak season reported occupancy rates of 76 percent or higher, an increase of 8 percent over last year. These owners also reported an average weekly rental rate of $1,493 or $213.29 per night.

Owners spend 8.6 hours per week on average managing their properties, yet generate an average of $26,000 per year in rental income

Nearly a third (30 percent) of owners say “it’s going to be a jolly holiday” for their year-end holiday vacation rental business – up from 22 percent in 2011

The post Vacation Rental Resurgence: Summer Occupancy And Rental Rates Ticked Upward For The Vacation Rental Industry This Year appeared first on Need More Rentals.

‘HomeAway Sort’ is the measurement of the following 6 criteria and will effect where your listing positions itself…

The most influential aspects appear to be accepting payments, displaying rates and updating your calendar.

The post How to rank high on HomeAway appeared first on Need More Rentals.

Email sent yesterday to holiday home owners on Villarenters.com:

We have some exciting news; we would like to offer you free use of our payment and management system to process your own bookings if you activate instant confirmation. This means that we will no longer charge you 2% commission for processing these bookings, we will only charge your renter a 2.5% credit card and processing fee.

Instant confirmation speeds up the process of booking and getting paid is quicker. If renters can book your property instantly rather than waiting for confirmation you will get more bookings! These properties also get on average, twice as many Villarenters bookings as ‘On Request’ properties.

Key points

1. No commission charges for processing your own bookings through Rentalsystems (if you have 4 or less properties)
2. Send a calendar link to renters so they can book and pay online
3. Your Rentalsystems/Villarenters calendar will automatically be kept up-to-date by renters
4. Renters will pay only 2.5% credit card and processing fee
5. Renters can take advantage of our breakage waiver
6. Add the Rentalsystems calendar to your own website to take bookings 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
7. Add filters on instant confirmation bookings so for example, single sex parties and young groups’ bookings will automatically revert to on request. This gives you the opportunity to accept or decline the booking
8. All Villarenters bookings will still be charged 10% commission

So instant confirmation works smoothly simply make sure that your calendar is up to date with all prices and availability.

The post RentalSystems adds new payment facility appeared first on Need More Rentals.

What expenses can be off-set?

In the majority of cases Mortgage Interest is the most considerable expense. However in addition to this the following expenses can also be offset against taxable rental income: Bank charges – Rates/local taxes- Management fees- Letting agent fee- Advertising costs- Insurance- Maintenance Costs

What if I do not rent my property?

Even if you do not rent your property you are still required to submit a Deemed Income tax return. If this applies the tax is calculated based on the cadastral value of the property. The cadastral value of the property is shown on your annual IBI receipt. If the property is not let for part of the tax year the deemed income will be apportioned for the non rental period only.

When tax returns are due?

Rental income tax returns must be filed quarterly if there is tax liability for the quarter. An annual return is not required if quarter returns have been filed for all 4 quarters. However, an annual tax return must be filed in cases where there were rental periods in which no tax liability arises. For such cases a filing deadline of the 20^th January after the relevant year end applies. The deadline for submission of Deemed tax return is 31st December following the relevant year end.

If I declare my income in my home country do I still have to pay taxes in Spain?

This is a common misconception amongst non-resident property owners in Spain. If you are in receipt of Spanish sourced rental income you must first declare this income in Spain. It is likely that you will also be required to declare this income on your tax return in your country of residence. Spain has double tax treaties with a number of jurisdictions and relief is generally due via tax credit in circumstances where the income is subject to tax in both locations.

What can I do if I would like to find more information?

If you would like to find out more about Spanish taxes, Spanish income tax obligations, Deemed income tax, Capital Gains Tax, UK/ Ireland income tax obligations regarding Spanish sourced income you can contact Property Tax International.

The post Spanish Taxes appeared first on Need More Rentals.

Have you noticed any difference in your number of guest reviews? We’d love to hear your comments.

Logging in for enquiries…

Plans afoot to introduce a compulsory log-in for home owners when responding to guest enquiries are causing near-meltdown on some property forums. Guest email addresses will no longer be visible in emails received when a prospective enquires about an owners property. The reason for this change is to thwart online ‘phishing’ – undeniably a major problem across the industry. However the added click-through, incompatibility of such devices as a blackberry and data being stored by HomeAway seem to be the major points of  consternation by owners.

Did you know this was happening? What are your thoughts?

The post HomeAway Review System & Mandatory Log-in appeared first on Need More Rentals.

1. Subscription level
2. VRBO sort

Platinum listings are automatically above Gold listings and so forth.

The VRBO sort criteria comes into play to determine the order within that level (i.e. inside Platinum). The VRBO sort is based on the following criteria:

1. Specified base rates
2. Regular calendar updates
3. Max number of photos
4. Number of reviews and average score of reviews
5. Allow travelers to zoom on your map
6. Show your map marker on your map
7. Accept online payments (using ReservationManager)
8. Tenure of listing (this is weighted more heavily than the other
criteria on VRBO)

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