Have you ever dreamed about owning a beach house? My wife and I have talked about it many times and we are always looking at the prices to see if by magic they came down enough for us to afford one. Yesterday I spent a little time looking at homes for sale along the New Jersey Shore.

While I would love to have a Property just for my family to use, it would be too expensive not to Rent it out on the weeks we were not using it. So I took look at the Rental rents that people are charging. Many of the sites that offer rentals will show you what is available each week and how much you would have to pay. To my surprise, a lot of the weeks in most of the homes I checked were not rented! Even during June and July many homes were listed as available, but not rented for several weeks. Now a house for a week on the Jersey Shore can go for $2-4,000 and up. So to miss just one week is a huge amount of money.

During my search, I noticed several Free Classified ad sites were loaded with Vacation homes for rent, yet some of the local paid sites only had a few listings. Anyone who has searched for a vacation home rental knows you can list your property on sites like VacationRentals.com for about $174 for the year. So why are these owners taking the chance in losing even one week’s worth of rent? Are they leaving it up to a realtor to find renters? Are they trying to save money?

My suggestion to anyone who owns a vacation rental is to develop a system that works for getting your rental completely booked every year. Start off by using every resource possible to advertise your property. Then refine your advertising to the handful of services that work the best.

Here are a few examples of creative ways to find tenants:

One landlord I know advertises his oceanfront home on the local radio station. My mother-in-law heard the ad and we rented his property one year.

At the last company I worked for, we had a free classified ad page where employees could list there items for sale. Several people rented their homes using the online list.

At my wife’s company, it is not uncommon to get an email from someone with tickets for a ball game or even a home for sale. A lot of her co-workers have sold things this way.

Contacting people who have rented from you in the past may also be the answer. Ask them if they would like to rent or know anyone who would. Offer them a discount.

Please share any ideas you have to keep your vacation home rented.