To take the pulse of a city, nothing like living like its inhabitants. In addition to being often economical, renting a house or apartment can blend with the local wildlife. The problem: each rental site has its own mode of operation. How to know which ones are reliable? Some tracks explored by travelers of my entourage.
Estelle Bouchard, director of The Revenge of NerdZ, has only good words when it comes to talking about her experiences with VRBO, which allows to rent an apartment or a house directly with the owner (the website is satisfied with display ads).
“I rented apartments through them five times since last year: in April 2010 in Puerto Morelos and in April 2011 in Akumal, Mexico. In July 2011, we spent six days in an apartment in San Francisco (near Golden Gate Park), three days in a pretty house in a vineyard in Sonoma, and two days in another house with a splendid view to Palos Verde , a very affluent suburb of Los Angeles. All these experiences went well, the photos reflected exactly what we saw.
Screenwriter Martine Pagé was also very satisfied with VRBO. During her recent stay in California, however, she opted for Airbnb and Vacation Rentals (the latter belongs to the company HomeAway, like VRBO), which operate under the same principle. She observes that often the same houses are listed on several sites, in addition to owning them. Both properties in San Francisco and Los Angeles lived up to the information leaked on the Web.
“But the pictures do not say everything,” she notes. The San Francisco apart street was busy, so we had to get used to the noise of the cars. ”
During her six-month trip to twenty-two countries, Marie-Pier Pilote and her husband also preferred this type of accommodation.
“The rental of apartments was THE great discovery of this trip. We only had good experiences. We have rented from major modern cities like Berlin, Prague and Krakow, but also Chisinau (Moldova), Kotor (Montenegro), Tirana (Albania) or Pristina (Kosovo). Going to the grocery store adds to the discovery, it’s an experience in itself. Getting out of the tourist spots has allowed us to get closer to people’s daily lives. ”
Most of the friends interviewed pointed out that it is sometimes necessary to contact several landlords before finding their temporary home. The privileged links by Marie-Pier to find the rare pearls?
“I preferred the independents, the small companies that we find in googlant (ex:” Apartment Belgrade “), she says. I often did not get an answer through big sites like Homelidays. ”
While the world’s most popular site, HomeAway.com, as well as VRBO and VacationRentals, can reimburse up to $ 10,000 for fraudulent tenants, this is unfortunately not the case for most sites.
Nancy Bélanger-Pilon learned it at her own expense after a stay in Paris with her sister. In July 2009, they spent a dream week in a “maid’s room” unearthed on Homelidays, but were never able to recover the deposit they had to make before departure. Purchased by HomeAway in 2009, Homelidays does not seem to benefit from the same protection service as his big brother.
Certainly, before giving your credit card number to a stranger, conduct your small survey (for example, by consulting forums and references of former tenants). Also require a written lease agreement, which will be very useful in case of a glitch. Be aware that some agencies select properties offered (unlike the majority of sites). This is the case of the Antre Amis, which rents houses and apartments in Europe and Quebec.
Other popular sites:
Abritel (French homeAway website)
Roomorama
Flipkey.com (TripAdvisor division)
Venere.com
Loc’Appart (France or Italy)
ApartRental
GreatRentals.com (another property of HomeAway.com)
only-apartments.fr
To rent cottages or houses in Quebec:
Chaletsalouer.ca
Chaletsqc.com
Antre-amis.com
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