Renting homes & apartments in Italy …
A little bit of research on homes and apartments for rent by owners will save you considerable money, and may give you a much better experience when traveling to Italy.
Most people who decide to rent a home or apartment in Italy start by going to the more frequented and more “corporate” appearing web sites, or select an agency from the New York Times travel section. While this certainly works, our experience is that working with one of the “big names” rather than trying to do a “direct from owner” rental provides little extra benefit or security, if any, and can cost considerably more.
When we first decided we would rent a home in Tuscany during the summer of 2001, we took the traditional approach and borrowed a catalog from a friend … a catalog from The Parker Company. We were shocked at the prices. They seemed quite high.
We did a bit of searching, and found RentVillas.com. Their prices were much more reasonable than those from Parker. We settled on a property through them. There was ease in making the payment (they accepted credit cards) and in making the booking (through their web site). They sent us a packet of information by mail, along with our rental voucher and directions to the property.
When we arrived, we met the owner, and he immediately handed us his business card and asked us what we were being charged by RentVillas.com. He was quick to tell us that “next time” we should deal directly with him and save considerable money (like 40%). This immediately got us thinking that we would never use an agency or broker in the US to confirm a rental in Italy again.
My Italian got better and better after August 2001, and a year or two later we used a real estate agent in Fano, where we eventually bought our Italian apartment, to book a summer beach rental. Again, we were met by the owner, and immediately he asked us to work directly with him to save money the next summer. His discount was not as great as the real estate agency did not take much of a fee … 100 Euro or so for a two week rental.
We dealt with him directly the next summer.
The reality is that other than broker the booking, there did not appear to be a whole lot of “value add” that the agent/broker provided us in either situation ... whether they were in the US or Italy.
Sure, I’m confident that they would list the many benefits of working with them, how they quality assure properties, are insured, etc., but none of this was that valuable to us. We also saw plenty of reviews of properties on RentVillas.com that seemed to suggest that their quality control was lacking … or they simply allowed a self-selection to take place when properties they listed continually received bad reviews. In other words, they’d list the property and let the reviews sort out the attractiveness of the properties to potential renters.
Now, with the pervasiveness of the Internet, there are plenty of ways to identify, research, and book properties in Italy (and anywhere in the world for that matter), directly with owners, and save lots of money.
We have found the two most popular sites are SlowTravel.com and VRBO.com.
Slow Travel is a great site that has classified ads for rentals in many countries, and also has a very active community of message board participants. These people are often veteran renters, and are accompanied by people who live in Italy and rent out their properties, or by people like us who have a property in Italy, live in the US, and rent it out as well.
On Slow Travel, if you find a rental property, very, very often a quick posting on the message boards will uncover someone who has rented the property, or knows who has, or knows of the property because they live in the area.
VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owner) is a large classified advertising site whose name says it all … they list properties like ours that are for rent by the owner … and they essentially cut out the “middle man”.
If you are renting in Italy for the first time, or the 20th time, I strongly encourage you to frequent Slow Travel and VRBO to research and select your dream rental home or apartment in Italy. You won’t be disappointed.
Most people who decide to rent a home or apartment in Italy start by going to the more frequented and more “corporate” appearing web sites, or select an agency from the New York Times travel section. While this certainly works, our experience is that working with one of the “big names” rather than trying to do a “direct from owner” rental provides little extra benefit or security, if any, and can cost considerably more.
When we first decided we would rent a home in Tuscany during the summer of 2001, we took the traditional approach and borrowed a catalog from a friend … a catalog from The Parker Company. We were shocked at the prices. They seemed quite high.
We did a bit of searching, and found RentVillas.com. Their prices were much more reasonable than those from Parker. We settled on a property through them. There was ease in making the payment (they accepted credit cards) and in making the booking (through their web site). They sent us a packet of information by mail, along with our rental voucher and directions to the property.
When we arrived, we met the owner, and he immediately handed us his business card and asked us what we were being charged by RentVillas.com. He was quick to tell us that “next time” we should deal directly with him and save considerable money (like 40%). This immediately got us thinking that we would never use an agency or broker in the US to confirm a rental in Italy again.
My Italian got better and better after August 2001, and a year or two later we used a real estate agent in Fano, where we eventually bought our Italian apartment, to book a summer beach rental. Again, we were met by the owner, and immediately he asked us to work directly with him to save money the next summer. His discount was not as great as the real estate agency did not take much of a fee … 100 Euro or so for a two week rental.
We dealt with him directly the next summer.
The reality is that other than broker the booking, there did not appear to be a whole lot of “value add” that the agent/broker provided us in either situation ... whether they were in the US or Italy.
Sure, I’m confident that they would list the many benefits of working with them, how they quality assure properties, are insured, etc., but none of this was that valuable to us. We also saw plenty of reviews of properties on RentVillas.com that seemed to suggest that their quality control was lacking … or they simply allowed a self-selection to take place when properties they listed continually received bad reviews. In other words, they’d list the property and let the reviews sort out the attractiveness of the properties to potential renters.
Now, with the pervasiveness of the Internet, there are plenty of ways to identify, research, and book properties in Italy (and anywhere in the world for that matter), directly with owners, and save lots of money.
We have found the two most popular sites are SlowTravel.com and VRBO.com.
Slow Travel is a great site that has classified ads for rentals in many countries, and also has a very active community of message board participants. These people are often veteran renters, and are accompanied by people who live in Italy and rent out their properties, or by people like us who have a property in Italy, live in the US, and rent it out as well.
On Slow Travel, if you find a rental property, very, very often a quick posting on the message boards will uncover someone who has rented the property, or knows who has, or knows of the property because they live in the area.
VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owner) is a large classified advertising site whose name says it all … they list properties like ours that are for rent by the owner … and they essentially cut out the “middle man”.
If you are renting in Italy for the first time, or the 20th time, I strongly encourage you to frequent Slow Travel and VRBO to research and select your dream rental home or apartment in Italy. You won’t be disappointed.
posted by Mark Pukita | 6:08 PM
|
1 comments
