My sister is buying two mobile homes in S.W. France, and would like to advertise them, but doesn't know which site to use, if indeed there is one. She is probably aiming at the UK market, although of course any nationality would be welcome. Any advice would be gratefully received.
Thank you for all the suggestions. These are mobile homes on a site by a lake. The mobile homes are owned by the Maire/Commune, as is the lake. Not sure if any of these suggestions cover mobile homes, and also not sure if mobile homes are included in the local taxes. I have a house here and declare it on my UK taxable income, but again not sure if this applies to mobile homes.
^^^^^ Dacid raises a good point. Do not be tempted to try to avoid paying local or other taxes. Register your ‘lets’ with your Prefecture and Mairie . You’ll find the system very lenient for small enterprises such as 2 gites ( in my case ) .
If you do go down the web-site route. Think also about social networking. We have a Facebook page, and a ‘like’ button on the website. This allows us to keep in regular touch with past and future guests. The guests themselves interact with suggestions of places to visit and post videos of their stays .
I’m on Twitter, FriendFeed and LinkedIn too. Every little helps.
Best of luck!
We've been really happy with Owners Direct.....had a fantastic first season, and still have guests staying with us just now.
Some owners round here have put everything in the hands of the UK company Hoseasons who of course tend to get Brit tenants. BTW I heard of some Brits in the south of France who had a very nasty visitation indeed from the French tax people and were fined 12000 euros (more than they had received in rent) as a fine for non declaration of rental income. Tax is I believe 35.5% of net profits- a figure many Brits find unbelievable especially if they are on the basic rate as well of course as being unpalatable.
French Connections did well for us when we had our gite business.
I’ve been running gites since 2005. I started advertising in UK magazines, owners in France, and on various holiday web-sites. I gained a small number of bookings. I also made a web-site and optimised it. Slowly but surely custom began to rise. The majority of customers found my site via google. A few came from owners in France. I got one from a holiday magazine, after I made a noise about getting nothing for my buck at ‘renewal’ time and they ran a 3 page ‘spread’ about us.
I slowly stopped the magazine ads, and the holiday web-sites… Then last year I binned owners in France… Result. Now turning folks away, gites still full now and have been since March ( save 1or 2 weeks here and there). I think it is 54 weeks this year from our 2. Already got 22 weeks booked for 2014.
So after all that waffle… A good web-site is the way forward… Be patient with it, and it’ll reap rewards.
Good luck.
Owners direct and home away both get a lot of bookings
Try Le Bon Coin. We have got 50% of our gite bookings this season by advertising here.