# booking.com



## Rosann 21 (Dec 28, 2012)

Hi,
This is my first time to post on this forum
I am looking for some advice please. We have a property inland on the Costa Blanca area.
We let the property through a letting agent in Spain who take a high comission. Which means we have very little left to cover expenses for the upkeep of the property.
I have considered changing to booking.com or another site and take more control of the bookings, hopefully we will get more bookings that way. Or is it safer to stay with the letting agent I am with. There are bookings from mid June to end of August, I was hoping for more. any tips or advise would be much appreciated.
Rosann 21


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

Rosann 21 said:


> Hi,
> This is my first time to post on this forum
> I am looking for some advice please. We have a property inland on the Costa Blanca area.
> We let the property through a letting agent in Spain who take a high comission. Which means we have very little left to cover expenses for the upkeep of the property.
> ...


PM me if you want but here are my thoughts;

I use HomeAway - a brilliant portal in many, many languages and countries. I pay about £250 per year and then a minimal percentage if they take payments by credit card. However, I live here and manage my own property.

If you don't live here then you need someone to do the meet 'n' greet, changeovers etc. There are many expats offering this service - just be careful who you choose and go by recommendations.


In my experience, lettings agents don't offer good internet exposure and do tend to overcharge!


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## xabiaxica (Jun 23, 2009)

snikpoh said:


> PM me if you want but here are my thoughts;
> 
> I use HomeAway - a brilliant portal in many, many languages and countries. I pay about £250 per year and then a minimal percentage if they take payments by credit card. However, I live here and manage my own property.
> 
> ...


...and make sure that they are working legally & insured! If they aren't, and anything goes wrong, your property insurance would almost certainly be invalid. I know someone who was burgled & because the 'keyholder' wasn't insured, their own insurer refused to pay out.


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

I can't speak as a vendor but what I can tell you is anytime we plan on going anywhere booking.com is the first place we look at.
So at least as far as exposure goes it should be very good, unless we are the only ones looking.:confused2:


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## ccm472 (Jan 6, 2016)

I would have been ecstatic if my apartment in Murcia had ever been let for 10 solid weeks (mid-June to end of August) or even half of that time. When we let ours out 10-8 years ago we probably averaged 8 weeks over the whole year. We decided it was too much hassle, particularly after water ingress from the flat above was declared urepairable by the letting managers yet my OH flew out, diverted some pipes, and got to spend the night in our trastero in 35° heat in the garage for his troubles.
Last year we tried again with the new managers, who were atrocious at communicating, eventually told us it was only let for 2 weeks and yet we got a €130 water bill for the summer. How many showers can 4 people take in a fortnight, with a swimming pool literally 6 feet away? What little money we got was only paid over when we threatened to denounce the managers. Now its for friends and family only.


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## Rosann 21 (Dec 28, 2012)

Hi Snikpoh,
Thanks for your reply and advice. I will look at HomeAway
I am not sure how to PM as I am new to this forum. I dont see any option to send a PM.
I will try and PM you as there are a few questions I would like to ask.
thanks again.
Rosann 21


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## Rosann 21 (Dec 28, 2012)

Thanks Pazcat


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## Alcalaina (Aug 6, 2010)

Pazcat said:


> I can't speak as a vendor but what I can tell you is anytime we plan on going anywhere booking.com is the first place we look at.
> So at least as far as exposure goes it should be very good, unless we are the only ones looking.:confused2:


Same here, it's first choice every time.


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## Rosann 21 (Dec 28, 2012)

Thanks CCM472,
Rosann 21


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

Alcalaina said:


> Same here, it's first choice every time.


I will say though we don't always book through there and instead will always look at the website of the places we are interested in first as often there may be more rooms available or at a slightly cheaper price going direct.

Even if the booking itself doesn't come from the booking.com that is likely the first place I saw it.

Out of curiosity what are the costs of using it?


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

We used booking.com last year and would do so again. Excellent website.


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## Rosann 21 (Dec 28, 2012)

Hi Chopera,
Thanks for your reply. Can you please tell me if booking.com charge a high fee , and what they do for the fee apart from advertising on their site.
Are you pleased with the amount of bookings you received through booking.com.
I would very much appreciate your advice.
thanks Rosann21


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## Rosann 21 (Dec 28, 2012)

Pazcat,
I have not as yet used booking.com to advertise. that is why I am looking for advice if you have used it to advertise your property to rent.
Rosann 21


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## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

I just clicked on the "List your property" tab on the top of their main page, and got to this page, where it says there is no sign-up fee and no subscription fee for listing your property. So it seems free, unless they charge a cut from bookings. You'd have to go past this first screen to find out, unless someone else on the forum knows of course.

https://join.booking.com/?lang=en-us&aid=304142&label=HeaderInfoMenu;


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## Chopera (Apr 22, 2013)

Rosann 21 said:


> Hi Chopera,
> Thanks for your reply. Can you please tell me if booking.com charge a high fee , and what they do for the fee apart from advertising on their site.
> Are you pleased with the amount of bookings you received through booking.com.
> I would very much appreciate your advice.
> thanks Rosann21


Sorry I should have clarified that we used them to book our holiday rather than let a property out through them

My point was that as a customer, I'd use them again, just because the website was so good.


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## Rosann 21 (Dec 28, 2012)

Thanks Allheart.
Will have a look


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## Rosann 21 (Dec 28, 2012)

Many Thanks Chopera.
I use the site myself when I book hotels.


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## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

Rosann 21 said:


> Thanks Allheart.
> Will have a look


You're welcome.  Maybe you can post the answer for others to know?


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

Rosann 21 said:


> Thanks Allheart.
> Will have a look


As a 'owner/landlord', when I tried to use it, I was annoyed that there was no save facility. On one occasion I didn't have a particular piece of info. so couldn't carry on. 

It seems all my edits to that point were lost as was my registration.

So be prepared! 


I'm sure once it's set up, it works fine.


by-the-way, they take 17% of each and every booking.


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## cmiz (Jun 19, 2012)

Rosann 21 said:


> Hi,
> This is my first time to post on this forum
> I am looking for some advice please. We have a property inland on the Costa Blanca area.
> We let the property through a letting agent in Spain who take a high comission. Which means we have very little left to cover expenses for the upkeep of the property.
> ...


Hi there

We come out to Costa blanca several times per year (with a view to moving over in next few years), we book different apartments every year. This year we are spending the 6 weeks holidays in Costa blanca/calida area, and have 4 different apartments booked. 

I use the following every year:
Home and away
Owners direct 
Holiday lettings

I know of a couple of local agents that I sometimes look at for ideas of where to stay, but tbh I don't like using them because I like the security the more we'll known and national companies offer. 

I would only ever use booking.com for hotels, the others have much more choice and are usually first choice for apartments/villa etc

As others have said there are a number of local people that offer meet and greet service. I know of a few that I have seen advertising their services, and have a few friends that hire them. (Would need to ensure reliability etc). 

Good luck


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

Are you aware of the new tourism licence laws? If you don't have a licence the fines are pretty severe...


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## Rosann 21 (Dec 28, 2012)

Thanks for the list of sites Chmz.
I will keep the information in mind.

Rosann21


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## Rosann 21 (Dec 28, 2012)

Hi Thrax, Thanks for drawing my attention to this.
I am not aware of the Tourism licence laws.
Can you please tell me where to get information on this?
Thanks Rosann 21


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## stevesainty (Jan 7, 2011)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hVd09oO58dAOUpKENLBADKgYZDK-70fMLfzRV2LWHaY/edit?usp=sharing

This is a link to the new property letting laws, they do not just apply to Andalucia.


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## Rosann 21 (Dec 28, 2012)

Steveaanity, thank you for the link on the property letting laws, very useful information.
Rosann 21


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## snikpoh (Nov 19, 2007)

Rosann 21 said:


> Steveaanity, thank you for the link on the property letting laws, very useful information.
> Rosann 21



This is also a good link for the Valencian area. 

Holiday rental licences in the Valencian Community


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## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

stevesainty said:


> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hVd09oO58dAOUpKENLBADKgYZDK-70fMLfzRV2LWHaY/edit?usp=sharing
> 
> This is a link to the new property letting laws, they do not just apply to Andalucia.


Those laws are only for Andalucia, and Rosann is in Costa Blanca. Holiday rentals laws are done by region. Here are the laws for the different regions as of November:

Region-by-region update on Spain’s holiday rental law - Spanish Property Insight


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## stevesainty (Jan 7, 2011)

AllHeart said:


> Those laws are only for Andalucia, and Rosann is in Costa Blanca. Holiday rentals laws are done by region. Here are the laws for the different regions as of November:
> 
> Region-by-region update on Spain’s holiday rental law - Spanish Property Insight


Thank you AllHeart, the link I posted was some information I had from last summer, I did not know that there was some update for the other regions.

I think the main thing to bear in mind for anyone considering letting a property is that you cannot, now, just do it without jumping through some administrative hoops.


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## AllHeart (Nov 22, 2013)

stevesainty said:


> Thank you AllHeart, the link I posted was some information I had from last summer, I did not know that there was some update for the other regions.
> 
> I think the main thing to bear in mind for anyone considering letting a property is that you cannot, now, just do it without jumping through some administrative hoops.


You're welcome. That's so true, that it's not so easy anymore. Two of my friends here in Andalusia do holiday lets under the table. With the new laws, one of them has registered and gone legit, and the other one has just stopped doing it for fear of getting caught.


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## Rosann 21 (Dec 28, 2012)

Thanks everyone for sharing the information.
Rosann 21


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