Promoting your property for Valentine getaways

One great advantage about owning a property on the Costa del Sol is the fact that it’s a beautiful and desirable year round destination. When people think about taking a luxury holiday they might think of Marbella and Puerto Banus with its 5* resorts, exotic beaches, and international restaurants adorned with celebrities. The fact is, wherever your property is on the Costa del Sol, you can take advantage of owning a property in one of the most enticing places in the world.

Valentine’s Day is approaching fast and there will be women everywhere wishing their partners would whisk them away for a romantic weekend in the sun. These days people’s expectations of everything, particularly holidays, are much higher than they used to be and it’s important to keep up! When couples and families go on holiday now they want the standards of luxury to be equal to or better than what they have at home. When people decide to rent out a holiday home instead of a hotel it’s because they want all the benefits of a ‘home’ and to make it their own while they are there. Holiday homes are not just a roof over their head with a pool outside, these days it has to be the whole hog.

Social networking has changed the way we communicate and it’s also a great tool for promoting your property. When visitors rent your holiday home they are likely to post images and videos from their holiday up online for the world to see. Word of mouth is the quickest form of promotion and if your property is looking desirable it’s an excellent way to showcase it for free!

So with Valentine’s Day coming up, what can you do to make your holiday home more appealing to couples looking for a touch of luxury and a holiday they will never forget? Here are a few tips:

• Furniture – Clean, quality furniture makes the world of difference when walking into a holiday home and takes it from looking generic to very well presented and looks amazing in photos. HomeCareOnTheWeb can help you with sourcing quality furniture at good prices if needed.

• Household Items – It’s all about the detail! Things like lamps, bed covers, kitchen equipment, pictures and towels make a surprisingly big difference to the appearance and ambience of the room. They should all compliment the furniture and decoration with no mix and match. Any linen should be as new and as good quality as possible to reflect to effort that has gone into making this home beautiful just for them.

• Facilities – Ideally people want equal or better facilities than they have at home. Tasks like cleaning, preparing food and getting ready should all be just as easy as their own home especially if they will be spending a lot of time in there during their stay. For instance having a fresh coffee maker, dishwasher, smoothy maker, hairdryer, large mirrors or anything else that would make their holiday more luxurious could have them coming back year after year.

• Extras – If you want to promote your property specifically for last minute Valentine’s Day breaks, you could offer them lovely extras such as a meet and greet service when they arrive at the airport, flowers, chocolates and champagne waiting at their holiday home, luxury mini toiletries in the bathroom and much more. HomeCareOnTheWeb can arrange all of this for you even if you are not in the country and make sure the property is ready for your guests to arrive.

There are lots of little things you can do this year to make your Spanish property more appealing to a wide range of people without breaking the bank. Bring out your properties full potential and you will see it appearing online in photos and videos from people’s holidays, generating more interest and earning you more income. Visit our website for more information about renting your property this year or read our blog for more tips on achieving more rental income in 2012.

 

When it rains in Spain…

2011 was the hottest year in Spain since records began 50 years ago, and although the Costa del Sol is known for being a year round sunny destination, it doesn’t always escape the wet weather especially during the winter months.

A spot of rain will be welcomed by the locals who work hard to keep the land and crops nourished, but it’s the last thing holiday makers want!

Looking after your palm trees

If you own a property with a garden in Spain, you may have heard about the damage to palm trees all over the country caused by red weevils and palm moths. This has cost millions of euros in damage and is continuing to effect our beautiful palm trees year after year.

These relentless pests are literally killing our palm trees from the inside out and are immune to normal pesticides.

Preparing Your Property for Winter Rentals

Now the summer period is over, the cooler weather has kicked in and the rain has made an appearance more than once. Unfortunately, the majority of Spanish properties are not built for winter weather, and the effects can be really noticeable to current and future tenants. If you are planning to rent out your Spanish property over the winter or you will be staying there yourself, there are certain things you can do to stop things getting ruined and make the winter months as comfortable as possible for you or your tenants. Here are a few tips we have gathered together to help you prepare this winter:

Key Holding Services Costa del Sol

If you have decided to rent out your Spanish property to earn some extra income, you will want to make sure everything runs as smoothly as possible with your tenants at change over times and arrivals. Professional key holding is a very handy and affordable service that ensures your keys will be in safe hands at all times. When your tenants arrive, we can deliver the keys for you, and even turn the heating on and check everything is ok inside if you need. When your tenants leave we can collect the keys and keep them safe until you need them again.

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Smoke Screen Security

Now that the summer rental period is over, thousands of properties will be left unoccupied during the winter months. Most people will leave their TV’s, DVD’s, cameras etc in the property and forget about them until next summer. Even if you live in your property year round, there is still a security risk. Living on the Costa del Sol we like to think theft doesn’t happen here but like everywhere else there are many burglaries in Spain every year. Unfortunately most of us wait until ourselves or someone we know has been burgled before we really protect ourselves. These days, burglars will bypass standard security systems by cutting the phone lines and even using gas to knock out anyone inside, including dogs. So how can we protect ourselves from intruders when we are home or away? A product that caught our eye recently is smoke screen technology.

Making your apartment appeal to families

Parents are always forward thinking when it comes to safety of their children especially when on holiday.Families are also the biggest users of self catering accommodation so, as a home owner in Spain, if you would like to rent out your property to help pay the mortgage, it’s a good idea to make it as child friendly as possible to attract more bookings.

Some design elements of Spanish apartments can make them more dangerous for children such as marble floors, pools and balconies.

Here are a few tips to make your apartment safer and more enjoyable for children so your property appeals to more people.

Free Download Guides

When it comes to owning property in Spain, you can never have too much information! There are various companies who offer advice at a charge, and the internet is an endless source of information. However, how can you make sure that what your reading is correct and trustworthy?

After receiving lots of questions about various topics, HomeCareOnTheWeb have complied some free downloadable guides to provide you with useful information on a range of subjects such as ‘Secrets of successful rentals’ and ‘Spanish legal information’. These free guides will answer many questions you may have about property management in Spain, and can easily be saved onto your computer for future reference.

All the tips given in the guides were provided by experts so you can use it as a reliable source of information, gain insider tips from professionals, and learn more about property in Spain in an easy to read, no-jargon guide.

To download your free guides visit our website.

Spain’s Winter Benefits

Now the summer is coming to an end, you may be thinking how you can still make money from your property during the quieter months of the year. It’s true that Spain is a well-known summer destination, but the good news is that most properties are suitable to rent out all year round, and thousands of people would rather visit Spain in the winter.

The weather is not unbearably hot, the prices go down, and it’s not so busy. All these things appeal to thousands of people, so it’s a good idea to highlight these facts when advertising your property for rentals.