Now the main season is over, we are concentrating our efforts on advertising and web site promotions for next year. This should always be in place a couple of months before the main booking season begins in Jan/Feb. Time is needed for search engines to pick up and index new adverts/pages added to websites so that each property can be found individually rather than the just the sites as a whole. Our newest website (www.spanish-villas-spain.com) is now fully functional, although a lot of work still has to be done on it, so all properties will be added here as well as on our existing dedicated rentals site.

We seem to be getting more enquiries for larger properties, and our most popular rental property this year has been a 6 bed villa in Moraira – in fact we could already have filled it twice over already for next July and August. This property has separate living accommodation, meaning that two families could holiday together but without having to share the same living space. As holiday prices increase, properties of this size will gain further popularity as families can save a substantial amount over booking two individual 3 bed villas. Unfortunately, rental properties of this size seem to be few and far between.

True Long term rental accommodation is in high demand and short supply, and whereas rents were very low (3 years ago I paid 300 Euros per month!) they are now increasing and are almost double what they were 3 years ago. We get many requests from the UK for a long term rental (usually 3 bed villa with pool) for around 500/600 Euros per month. Unfortunately, Spain no longer offers a cheap standard of living and a property of this calibre would be in the region of a minimum 800 euros per month plus bills.

By ‘true’ long term rental, I mean a contract period of 11 months – the majority of people relocating transport most of their wordly goods from the UK and are unwilling to move every couple of months. Those looking for 2/3 months, are normally people looking for property to buy in a certain area. Unfortunately, most owners opt to stick to holiday rentals as the income is higher. With the ever increasing supply of holiday rental property, his can backfire if the property does not secure bookings and owners are left with very little income over a one year period whereas they could have had a regular, although lower, monthly income all year round. This type of rental is only good for investors, or those owners who have no interest in spending time at the property.

There is a vast difference between a legal and professional property management company and your ‘friend’ down the road. How are you going to deal with that friend when things go wrong – after all he’s doing you a favour isn’t he? Unfortunately, in order to ‘cut costs’, many owners choose the friend first, and switch to a professional company when things start to go wrong. Many of our emails from property owners who have tried to cut corners tell stories of properties being rented without owners knowledge, ‘managers’ taking money taken for rentals and then disappearing, properties not being satisfactorily cleaned when guests arrive, and worse still a couple of occasions when clients have booked and paid for a holiday and arrive to find there are no keys available and they are unable to contact the ‘manager’ who rented it to them.

A Property management service is there for the purposes of giving owners peace of mind – a local number to call for guests visiting the property, and ‘your eye in Spain’, keeping a regular check on the property. Many owners ask why they have to pay an annual fee and often request that we supply rentals and cleaning only. Yes, we can offer a good rentals and cleaning contract, however owners still expect us to be ‘on call’ when any problems arise. We offer a broad range of services and price discounts under an annual management contract, but unfortunately we cannot offer these services for free! - You get what you pay for.