The Best Vacation Rental Sites

Check out another great site RentMyPlace.com

VacationRental.com (owned by VRBO).
Craigslist is a great place to find a vacation rental, but be careful of scams.  (Be careful on ANY website of scams.)
You might want to just try doing a search to find local vacation rentals.  For example, if you are planning a visit to Fort Lauderdale, FL, just google search ‘Fort Lauderdale vacation rentals’ or ‘Fort Lauderdale home rental’.  You might be able to find some independent homes (like us!)  FTL Vacation Rental.

I use lots of sites to find vacation rentals and to promote my own vacation rentals. One of my favorites is www.secondporch.com.  As an app on Facebook, second porch uniquely offers the rental guest and the rental owner a better view of who they are communicating with.  It’s the best site for open, interactive communication.

Suzanne,

Great article!  Keep in mind that there are alot of great smaller websites that specialize in certain areas or even communities like The Villages.  The Villages rentals can be found on our website at http://www.VillagesHomes4Rent.Com.  We also have a blog to update people on topics that affect The Villages.  The blog site is located at http://www.VillagesHomes4Rent.Com/blog

Gary

Another great option for rentals is www.Resortgems.com with thousands of timeshares for rent. Resorts like Marriott, Disney, Wyndham, available from owners who aren’t using their units so priced 30-50% less than if rented from the resort. Resort Gems manages the paperwork, contract and payment so there’s no haggling (or risk) of dealing directly with the owner. Operates like Stub Hub does for tickets

Another great website for vacation rentals is www.ScenicRentals.com. It’s a family-run business and they’ve got a lot of great rentals! I’ve always been very happy with them.

Nice article, but Zonder doesn’t really work anymore. Give it a try . . . the inventory is not updated and you cannot book anything on-line. I don’t believe they are actively maintaining that website anymore.

I would also recommend trying a few of the by-owner listing sites.

www.vacationrentalconnection.com , www.ValueVacationRentals.com and if you are elooking for a vacation rental in the southeatern USA, www.bestsoutheastrentals.com

Regards,
Max

Large websites advertising vacation rentals are useful but here is an important caveat. With huge data bases of privately owned properties all over the world being advertised, there is a resulting lack of monitoring that can almost unavoidably occur, and consumers need to be aware of this. For example, I see incidents in the internet where private homes are offered for rent in areas that are not actually licensed to legally rent in neighborhoods that restrict vacation rentals, and where property owners are failing to collect and pay sales and bed tax required by law. In the worse case scenario, I have personally seen 2 incidents where vacation rental properties advertised for rent on craigslist don’t even actually exist!
This being said, it is fine to begin your search on a large data base, but it is smart to find and rent your vacation rental property through a locally owned and operated and licensed vacation rental agency. It could save you some big headaches and disappointments in the long run. In today’s market you will find that, out of necessity, many local rental agencies now advertise on the large vacation rental data bases along with private property owners, in addition to having their own advertising sites. But it is really is worth your vacation planning time to make a deeper internet search and check the world-wide-web for locally owned and operated vacation rental advertising websites in locations where you want to rent. You’ll almost always find more detailed information about the individual rental properties you are interested in, the communities where they are located and specific information on things to see and do in the surrounding area. 

I have tried flipkey and within a month got 3 bookings…great..not yet using the other so thanks for the hard work..

We’ve been renting our home for about a year and have tried all of your listed options (and then some).  It seems that VRBO/HomeAway send the vast majority of inquiries our way and seem to have the largest list of properties.  I like the theory behind how Airbnb works, but I think it’s still a bit in its infancy.  Anybody looking for a place in Mexico can obviously just skip all this and :::shamelss plug::: contact us directly http://www.casadoshermanos.com.

I list with 2 sites that are the best bang for the buck for my rentals.  Both deliver excellent traffic that converts to bookings, which is what it’s all about-bookings.  They are http://www.findmyvacationrentals.com charges $99/year and http://vacationrentals.com charges $199/year. 

My 2 cents…