Questions

We know that a vacation home is a major investment to most owners. We also know that our homeowners expect a fair return on that investment. That’s why VillaDirect only takes high-value retail bookings. These are taken through individual guests and travel agents or their affiliates, rather than discount tour operators. This allows our homeowners to enjoy the maximum possible return (typically between 65-75% occupancy on their rental’s retail rate). We’ve also used “BIG DATA” to crunch our own nightly rates and compare them with our competitors, hotels and other locations. As a result, this helps VillaDirect to maximize the available rent per night that we can charge, using dynamic “Yield” pricing. This allows us to manipulate the rates to our owners advantage.

The choice of vacation rental is ultimately the decision of the renter. However, our homes collectively enjoy an average occupancy rate of over 64% (2017 figures), meaning that most of our homes are occupied for more than 33 weeks out of the year. Our multi-channel marketing approach also ensures that your property enjoys maximum possible exposure and reaches millions of potential vacationers around the globe.

VillaDirect provides multi-level marketing for your home. Over 85% of our retail rentals are generated from our website which has over 3,000 visitors each day. VillaDirect uses a combination of search engine optimization of its own website, together with pay-per-click advertising on Google and other search engines to generate the potential guests to villadirect.com. The remainder of the reservations are generated from our advertising of your home through sites like Airbnb, HomeAway, and VRBO, etc.

Nothing, Nada, Zilch! VillaDirect recovers the cost of its marketing of your home from the commission that it takes or through the nightly occupancy fee (on the Pay-per-performance agreement).

You’re getting comprehensive property management services, meaning that when you’re a VillaDirect homeowner, you’re completely covered. From standard property care and maintenance to industry-leading guest service and rental marketing, our owners enjoy a variety of owner services that make owning a vacation home a stress-free experience. Services like:

• Professional property care including regular housekeeping, home inspection, pool service, lawn care and home maintenance.
• Clear, concise and accurate monthly and annual statements with a breakdown of your income and expenses.
• Optional utility bill management/payment.
• A personal Client Services representative available to help answer any questions.
• 7-day a week guest concierge services.
• Handling of guest inquiries, payment processing, rental agreements, check-in and check out.
• Pre-arrival property inspections by in-house staff.
• Post departure cleaning service by in-house staff.
• Weekly pool service.
• Incandescent light bulb and battery replacement when needed.
• Scheduled pressure washing services.
• Monthly AC filter replacement.
• Annual air conditioning service.
• Exclusive rates on optional services like pest control, tree-trimming, property video tours and more.
• Online vacation rental listing(s) on the VillaDirect website.
• Online vacation rental listing(s) on world-leading sites like Homeaway, VRBO, AirBnB, and more.
• Professional high resolution photo shoot of your home.
• Full color home guide for all guests staying at your home.
• Experienced marketing team dedicated to producing rental bookings and generating income for you.

Yes. VillaDirect welcomes owners who want to get involved in marketing their own property. However, it’s not necessary, as all VillaDirect property management agreements include marketing on many of the world’s top vacation rental websites (including our own!) Your home enjoys exposure to tens of thousands of potential renters every day. If you choose to market and rent your home, remember there are applicable fees for cleaning, inspection and disposables, plus a small nightly service fee. Simply put, owners who do all their own bookings are not a “good fit” for our program. Usually, owners that do their own bookings operate on much tighter margins (because they can’t generate the same rental rates). If you book your home more than 20% of the year – or if you fill the home just on the peak weeks, then we’re probably not the management company for you! We strongly advise that you rent your home at the same rates (or even higher than those) that VillaDirect advertises … to protect your investment from depreciating nightly rates.

Of course! It’s your home and you can stay in whenever you want. However, there may be guests eager to stay in your rental, so we ask that you notify us well in advance. We can then block off your desired dates so it doesn’t show as available on the calendars. From experience, we know that a small number of owners like to come during the most popular (and busiest!) times of year. While you’re free to do that – we recommend that you leave those dates open for us to generate maximum revenue for your home during the peak dates. Why not book yourself into a swanky hotel with the proceeds from renting out your home?

When signing with VillaDirect, you will establish a rolling reserve account with a small initial deposit which varies based on your property type and size. Initial deposits are also required for property set-up. The reserve account is refundable upon termination.

Owners need to secure proper and adequate insurance covering the rental home, naming VillaDirect Management LLC as their agent and also as “additionally insured” on the policy. The insurance policy must carry a minimum of $300,000 of liability coverage.

Part of VillaDirect’s comprehensive property management services is the payment and management of utility bills on behalf of the owner. Utility bills presented to VillaDirect can be paid via the expense account that you establish with the company upon joining our program. This account is replenished either by rental income or owner deposit. One of the programs that we offer reduces your monthly fees by you paying your utility bills directly via ACH. This means that we don’t need to perform the administration, but we’re comfortable that the home will have all of its utilities turned on when our guests arrive.

Guests check in and are provided with a unique key code to enter your home. This key code is secure, and lasts only the duration of their stay. While guests are staying in your home, they enjoy access to VillaDirect’s no-cost concierge services, through which they can make dinner reservations, secure theme park tickets and rental cars, and even reserve a spa day. When it’s time for a party to leave, there is no need for them to return to our offices to check out. Our SecurePASS locking system changes the door code at the time of their departure, securing your home and leaving it ready for our property care staff to clean and prepare for the next party.