You know I do not like to get into details of pricing of vacation rentals because prices change year to year and I do believe there is a range of pricing for each type of vacation rental, so you usually know what kind of price to expect. But, I wanted to point out an interesting example we came across on this trip and add a few more pricing comments.

I found an interesting looking vacation rental - rent from owner - near Pienza and checked it out when we were there. It is a 3bed/2bath apartment in the village of Montefollonico and rents on the owners site for less than $1000/week (the price has now been removed from their web site). The apartment is lovely but the 2nd bathroom is so small with such low ceilings as to be almost useless (they managed to put a shower head in thier so they can call it a full bathroom, but I don't think it could be used). The main bathroom is fabulous - huge, tub, shower, double sinks. The yard is beautiful. Furnishings good. Kitchen very good. Location excellent. The owners are a young couple who live next door.
http://www.lacanonica.toscana.nu/

When we went to see the apartment, the owner explained that they had just contracted to rent through The Parker Company. Here is the page for the property:
http://www.parkervillas.com/villas/villadetails.cfm?sid=518142200111 04143504&villa_ID=5730&occ=6&year=2002

The price is significantly higher with TPC. $1980/week April through September. (Remember you get discounts with TPC if you book for more than one week, so the price can be lower.)

I felt this apartment was good value for $1000/week but was not worth more, especially because of that second bathroom.

You will notice that TPC changed the name of the vacation rental so you cannot go onto Google and search to see who has it cheaper. They do this with all their properties.

TPC represents the UK agency Cottages to Castles. They bundle the CtoC listings in with their own, so you cannot tell them apart. But if you get a CtoC catalog (which I did when we were in England), you will see that their prices are alot lower. When CtoC first started their web site, you could not book thru them, you had to use TPC from the US. But that has changed because I spoke to someone who booked through them for a place next year. I don't recommend CtoC anyway - same reason as TPC - some listings are good, some are bad, you cannot tell what you will be getting. Only book a place for them if you have read a good review of it - some of their places are great.

Many agencies do this. I just received an angry email from someone who booked thru www.myitalianvacation.com loved their place, but found out that they paid twice as much as if they had booked through the owner. They wrote: "I would like to recommend to everyone to not use my italian vacation .com. While my apartment was beautiful, I felt he ripped us off. I later found the apartment in a Rick Steve's guide by the woman who owns it. The service(my italian vacation.com) added a HUGE commission. We paid $1350. a week when the owner only charged half that. I wrote him to tell him my concern and didn't hear back from him. I was very dissapointed." They titled their email MyItalianRipoff.com!!

I suggested that the person write a review for us and we would post both ways of booking, but I have not heard back from them yet.

Agencies typically add 20 - 25% commission to what the owner gets from them. A few agencies add a much larger percentage.

What do we do about this? I recommend avoiding agencies who rename vacation rentals - this is just sneaky. And when you find a place you like, do a Google search on the name and location to see who else represents it. If you can find it at a significantly lower price, go back to the agency you were dealing with and see if they will match the price. This will force the agencies to get more realistic in their pricing.

You should also be aware that owners sometimes set one price for one agency and a different price for another. These things are all negotiated between owner and agency. Also some agencies price in US dollars and build in a safety net for currency fluctuations.

Even my beloved Zak was caught with a price of a villa near Lucca that was a couple hundred dollars per week higher than the same villa from Domani-USA. Jack from IN figured this out after he had booked with Zak. Zak refunded him some money, but said he could not understand how Domani-USA was able to charge so little. He said they were getting hardly any commission.

So those are my pricing comments for today. I got onto this topic as a diversion from posting the reviews - back to work!!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kim,

I also experienced this. The place we rented, Podere Luisa, was booked through Italian Itineraries. The same property was rented by someone else through Italian Villas, and called La Novellina. The price we got through Italian Itineraries was much better!

Pauline,

I agree with you totally. I always try and see
if I can find the property that I am interested
in listed on a website by the owners first. In most
cases, the cost is considerably less than when
it is listed though agencies.

I have a great example for you. The property
Casa San Rocco Due listed in the Parker Company
catalog is renting for $1160-2220 US dollars.

If go to: www.inyourlife.com and click on Umbria
and then on Perugia you will find the same property
called Farm San Rocco. The house is now called San
Rocco II house and the rental is directy through
the owners. The price is NOW roughly between
$630.00 - 940.00 per week. That is a SUBSTANTIAL
savings, don't you think???

By the way, do you have the InYourLife site listed?
They have some nice rentals listed all over Italy.

If anyone is looking for a rental outside of Todi
that sleeps 6-8 people, this looks like a nice
possibility with a great savings if you rent via
the owner ......

Regards,

Leslie

I knew I was opening a can of worms with this topic, but I was in a devilish mood. Please do not think by what I said that I prefer to book with owners instead of using agencies. I prefer to use agencies. I was trying to make the point that there are good agencies and bad agencies, both with regards to quality of listings and prices. Someone just private emailed me because of this posting worried they were paying too much for an upcoming trip because they had booked with agencies - but they had booked with good agencies.

A good agency carefully selects their properties. We met with several agencies on this last trip (TuscanHouse, La Bella Toscana, Summer's Leases, Roman Homes, Elegant Etruria) and all of them said that they only take a certain quality of listings. Zak says he is contacted by owners who want to list with him and he goes to look at a place and it is dreadful - he will not take those listings. Each of the other agencies said the same thing. There are some really dreary vacation rentals out there - you do not want to end up in one of them when for the same price you can be somewhere nice. This is why I started this web site!! So we can all stay in nice places. Not luxury, top of the line places (unless that is what we want) - just good basic nice comfortable places.

Because of our past experiences, with really nice and really horrible places, I realized that we had to figure out some way of telling the difference. I wanted to find agencies who could be trusted.

A good agency is best to deal with because they will tell you honestly about their properties - which one will suit you better. If you deal with an owner, they have only one thing to sell you. If you find a good reliable agency, you can use them year after year - and yet stay in a variety of places.

I personally deal with agencies. On our last trip we used three different agencies. The only time we have ever rented directly from an owner, the whole thing fell apart two months before the trip because she decided to rent the place long term!

Dealing with the owner of an estate is different in my mind - they are a small business. They have several apartments and are used to dealing with many bookings. They could probably move you to a different place if something is wrong with your place (as can an agency).

I do not like to search endlessly through those listings by owner web sites - there are no standards, anyone can list their place for about $100/year. I know some of you prefer the personal touch of dealing with an owner, but I do not agree. It gets too personal for me - you can't complain because it is their house - you are complaining about them. I have had some reports where people deal with the owner and it is all great, but when they get there, the owner lives in Rome and the place was not really as described.

Steve and I run a small business and I appreciate these hard working small businesses - the agencies. I just want to find the good ones. I don't mind paying a bit more for the convenience of booking with someone in the US and making payment in the US - but my point was that I don't want to pay double. That is not acceptable. That is why I recommend doing a search to see who else lists a place, then bring that information to the agency.

I also recommend that people searching for vacation rentals read the reviews on this web site. We have almost 100 reviews of places in Italy - see what others experience. If they like a place, you will probably like it. And have a look at
Our Special Picks - I am just updating that section and adding two more agencies: Summer's Leases for Umbria, Roman Homes for Rome. Eventually I hope to have a good list of maybe 20 agencies and estates in Italy on the Our Special Picks page.

quote:

---

By the way, do you have the InYourLife site listed?
They have some nice rentals listed all over Italy.

---

Too many annoying flashing ads!! They seem to be based in Italy (San Casciano). This is another one of those web sites with listings by owner. You fill out the form on the site and it is sent to the owner. They also list the owner web sites. From my brief look, it seems like they have the same listings that many of the agriturismo web sites have.

I am guessing they either charge owners to be listed or they just use the common agriturismo data base and hope to make their money from the annoying clickthrus.

I will add it to my list of Italy agriturismo databases:
http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/listings/agritourism.htm

This is my page with worldwide website databases:
http://www.slowtrav.com/faq/websites_databases.htm

Do you have any experience with them or know anyone who has used them?

Pauline,

No, I don't have any experience with the site nor
do I know anyone that has used them, but I thought
that it might be another good source for listings
for those who were interested.

I have not always booked thru owners of rental
properties. In fact, my last two bookings were
through an agency as well. I just think that
sometimes it is a better deal to book directly
with the owner if you like the property and can
save a considerable amount of money by doing so.
When I have booked through the owner, I have had
good experiences.

Regards,

Leslie

Pauline,

Sorry, forgot to add this to my last posting!
Can you still book La Canonica though the
owners??? I was wondering why they took the
price off the website.

Also, had a look at Casa Anna at Tuscan House
and it looks really nice. Did you ever try
Osteria La Porta in Montichiello???

Regards,

Leslie

I agree to book through the owner if the only agency listing it is asking much higher prices. When we met the owner of La Canonica he seemed a bit odd. He thought we were an agency trying to get his listing. I wrote to him twice at three different email addresses asking if people can still book through him, but he never replied to me.

How about being a spy for me - and send him an email asking his prices?

Casa Anna is the place in Montechiello isn't it? We only saw it from the outside. It is on a street in the village, but is across from a large garden (this is its garden) which looks over the town wall, so it looks like the house gets good light. Sometimes these places in the villages are on such narrow roads they get very little light. We did not see inside. I think we might rent this place next year - good price, great location, fun to be in town, nice garden with great views.

We only had coffee at that restaurant - while waiting for Zak and the coffee was not great!! I know you highly recommend it, so does Zak, so we will try it another time. The people seemed nice. We really did not eat out much on this last trip - we had such a nice kitchen that we ate many meals at home. And we were just not in the mood for eating out much. I am embarrassed to say to all you foodies, but this is the trip where the Italian food was not such an attraction for me. We ate a few meals out in Sorrento and the food was so rich, that it just put me off eating out. Normally, at home in Santa Fe, we hardly ever go out. I think I am just in a rice and vegetables mood these days. We had some lovely meals in Rome. I don't really know what happened to us foodwise on this trip - I will have to think about it....

We too found many Cottages to Castles properties also being rented through TPC. We also found that there was a huge price difference between the two. Specifically, we've rented Il Querceto - Cottage Fienile for a week at the end of September, 2002. TPC was around $600 MORE than C-to-C, for the exact same property. Not only were the names not changed in TPC's catalog, but the wording was only slightly altered from that in the C-to-C catalog. This is an outrageous price difference - quite a markup!

There was no problem dealing with C-to-C. I contacted them via e-mail, reserved the dates, and phoned them to give them my credit card. They were very pleasant and easy to deal with, and always answered all of my questions promply. When we had to switch dates, they were able to do so quickly and efficiently.

If you get the C-to-C catalog (just put your name in on their site, and they'll mail it to you), you'll find that they discuss insurance in their price list. Just ignore it - it's only required for their UK-based customers. They had no problem at all renting to "yanks".

I started a new thread about The Parker Co and C to C because I think something has changed with their relationship. A year ago you could not book through the C to C web site - only thru TPC. I have written to TPC to see what is going on.