If you have taken the decision to rent out your holiday home without dealing with agents, you have already taken the most productive step towards avoiding unnecessary costs. Taking on the responsibility of renting out your own property may seem daunting at first, but by setting yourself high personal standards to begin with, you will increase your long term revenue as well as the unexpected short term costs associated with poor property management.

1.)Advertising: Though it may be tempting, do not misrepresent the nature of your property or its immediate surroundings. Not only might you find yourself in legal trouble (which can get very costly), you will severely damage the free word-of-mouth advertising from which most holiday property letters benefit.

2.) Keep it real: On a related note, use positive but realistic language when advertising your property. Overdone adjectives like ‘magnificent’, ‘breath-taking’, ‘awe inspiring’ are not only clichéd, they actually undermine the plausibility of your description. Moderately strong adjectives like ‘pleasant’, ‘welcoming’ and ‘peaceful’ are far more convincing.

3.) Freemail : Set your standards before your guests even arrive. Send them directions, a personal note, local tourist information and useful phone numbers via email. Once the documents have been written they can be used over and over again and at no cost to yourself.

4.) Time flies when you’re booking fun: Respond to enquiries as fast as you possibly can. When people make bookings, they generally make decisions very quickly. A timely, friendly and professional response will not only give them a positive impression of the person with whom they are dealing, it may also make the difference between them choosing you or moving on to the next convenient booking.

5.) Treat them fair, keep them there! – One positive experience may result in free word-of-mouth advertising and repeat bookings. In other words, that extra bit of effort in the short term may reduce effort in the long term. One booking may result in another, and another, and another.

6.) Turn compliments into cash: Encourage your guests to add comments on your property website. Recent research indicates that comments from ‘real people’ do much to increase the likelihood of a booking.

7.) Use the Web, Wisely and Well: There are a multitude of websites out there: some of them are stupidly expensive whilst others are sensibly priced or even free. Here’s just one that I’m aware of. If you invest the time now and find a website that works for you, you may never need to stress over expensive or ineffective advertising again.