The vast majority of Rome vacation rental agencies will try to impress you boasting that they handle a large number of properties: 100, 200, 400 etc. Many customers however will then report that they were not satisfied with the apartment, and also with the service, as they were badly assisted, let alone if some problem showed-up. Side services? Forget them, they had to contact other service agencies.
This frequent picture occurs for many reasons:
- The Rome apartment rental agencies want to include as many properties in their listings to impress you on one hand, and to have as many rentable units on the other hand. However by doing so they just achieve a mere “collection” of properties.
- They consequently don’t know well the apartments, the villas or the owners, and they find it very difficult if not impossible to prepare adequately the units (furniture, equipment, linen, towels etc.). They only trust (or hope) that the proprietors will possibly do their job well. Sometimes they don’t know the properties at all.
- They don’t assist directly or personally customers at check-in and check-out, or during their stay, or they do it quickly, superficially.
- Many agencies, especially the ones in the USA and in the UK, will just “pass” their customers to their Italian co-operating vacation rentals agencies or proprietors, yet they will not know exactly what will happen after, during their stay. Also the Italian agencies follow the same trend: they frequently pass customers, their needs (and all the work it implies) to the owners of the units.
As a consequence of the all the above reasons, the holiday apartment agencies cannot have leverage on the proprietors to ameliorate the property in all its aspects. The owners will do it only when they realize that the agents follow attentively the customers and their property.
You will realize now a worldwide trend of agencies in the vacation rental business: it is *more profitable* to collect as many properties as possible, and to be just “intermediary” dealers, ideally like some huge portals you will find in the internet. They make their profit only by marketing and brokering vacation rentals, ideally without leaving their office (!). They just make the proprietors or their local agents do the work. However, of course in the large majority of cases the proprietors are unaware of how preparing the property and the service for a demanding international clientele, with all the countless aspects involved. In most cases they also do not speak your language, and they will not supply any sort of tourist assistance. Last but not least, in this negligent picture, you can forget about side services. The only one possibly prepared for you is the car service.
The large majority of customers is unaware of this reality, and usually considers only such simple factors as some nice photos, or attractive low prices (often deceiving, as additional entries are marked on top later: cleaning fees, taxes, commissions etc.). They are unaware of a blatant reality: the large majority of vacation apartments in Italy don’t even have a normal telephone (let alone internet connectivity), a colour TV, a washing machine, or an iron!
How to choose the right Rome apartment or villa rentals agency
Forget naturally the agency publicity (“We are the best…” etc.), forget especially the “reviews” on travel sites, as they are a hype, the editors select the hyper-bad reviews of difficult people, or the hyper-good ones, just to make their sites more alluring, without allowing replies of owners or agents. Moreover they are frequently in cahoots with the agencies.
Also references are a bad criteria. In fact on one hand they are ineffective as they can be deceivingly manipulated in bad faith, and on the other hand they interfere with the privacy of good people. Moreover, they cannot be part of the regular working procedures of an agency.
The key factors or golden rules are:
(1) Think twice before renting from internet sites and agencies which are “portals”, IE which simply collect and publish publicity of properties. Prefer agencies and web sites representing selected (consequently limited) properties, which they know and handle *directly*.
More on this point
(2) Evaluate how the vacation rental company and the agents will interact with you. Evaluate how reliable they seem, how informative they are. In other words how trustworthy and professional they result or appear.
Bear well in mind that in the end you have *people* on the other side offering you a service (which includes *also* a property), and it is with them that you are actually dealing: their service and expertise is what you are actually buying.
At Roman Homes, which you can find at the internet address http://www.romanhomes.com/ you will find hand-picked Rome apartments and villas, with excellent equipment, furnished with taste, and always maintained in pristine conditions by the owners. Most have a patio, some with stunning views of Rome’s sights and roofs. They all have air conditioning, and all other amenities. Compared to hotel rooms and hotel suites you have more value. Above all you will discover a human touch, allowing you to experience the human qualities of the Italians, the real Italy. For your Rome vacation rentals, we invite you to seriously consider our Rome apartment and villa rentals.
Although this blog was prompted by an agency Roman Homes®, we invite other agencies and Rome tourists to have a say on this crucial topic, enabling Rome visitors to be duly informed about the reality of vacation rentals.
Tags: Rome apartment rentals, Rome apartments, Rome vacation apartments agencies, Rome vacation rentals
