We Needa Vacation

I have successfully rented my little cottage in Wellfleet for 25 yrs., except for the unfortunate year I continued with Home Away when they were bought out by Expedia and began acting like obtrusive middlemen and charged a booking fee to renters. The first year they gave us as owners an option to pay more in order to free renters from fees, which I was glad to accept on behalf of my valued tenants. I received no queries for the 1st time ever and consequently discovered (as a penalty?) that my site was commingled with 5 other towns and 42nd on the list. They are completely unethical and customer service is nil.
Fortunately, we owners on the Cape have the great privilege and unique opportunity to benefit from the service of WNAV.......an outstanding and excellent company.....a great solution for tenants and owners alike. Not only do they not charge a booking fee to renters but the quality and attention they give to all is incomparable. they continue to improve, research and refine their service equally to the benefit of renters as well. I continually read reviews posted on site; and there are many that are critical. As a matter of fact, an owner cannot remove a negative review if it is deemed reasonable and within guidelines. WNAV is excellent...the very best and without them I would not rent my cottage,

I've been using weneedavacation as the owner of a rental unit on Nantucket for 12+ years. At first, I was lured away by VRBO and Airbnb because of their volume but soon got off both of those. They started requiring higher fees of the renters and controlling more of what the homeowner could/couldn't manage. (Do you really want them managing repairs on Nantucket?) I came back to using only weneedavacation.com because they make it simple and less expensive for renters. Landlords pay them once/year and renters get no requested fees for additional services, a win-win.
The owners are highly ethical, too. Both WNAV and I were scammed once by a person pretending to be the owner of my place, taking a renter's $. Joan stood behind and resolved the whole thing so the renter was made whole. Check out that your correspondence with the landlord looks legit!
The fact that they have kept a personal, professional and trustworthy site for many years with consistently strong service earns them 5 stars and my long term business.

This rental service is the best for rentals on the Cape, Marthas Vineyard and Nantuckett. They do not charge the 12 to 18% additional fee of the rental cost to the renter that VRBO does. In addition to that, you can easily speak to a representative who is employed and living in the USA. This is unlike the other big outfits who outsource to other countries. Chancers are you will speak to one of the owners. I have never had a problem with any rental but have been happy to have quick answers to minor concerns when I picked up the phone. I don't understand how people can complain when they don't pick up the phone and call and ask for help when they have a problem. And whats with the statement that you can't leave an unflattering review? Yes you can. People in the know use We Need A Vacation and can rely on their help and concern.

I don't know what the answer is for the concerns voiced by the renter reviewers but when when we were renters we never found a property that was in PERFECT condition. There was always something. (I rented through a site other than WeNeedaVacation.) Owners don't have complete control of what condition their property is in when it is rented... they just do the best they can because THEY WANT PEOPLE TO RENT WITH THEM AGAIN. In one house we rented the canopy bed fell down on me... NOT the owners fault as the previous renters had evidently broken it and not informed the owners of the issue. These are NOT hotels. These are people's homes and they take a terrific chance on people they do not know coming in to their home.

I have now switched sides and am an owner who needs to rent part of our hearts.
We currently list on a variety of sites and I don't see how any site "protects" the renter from a bad experience. What I DO know it that the staff at We Need a Vacation could not be nicer or more helpful. Renting out our place is hard emotionally and is a new experience and they have been WONDERFUL.... above and beyond what anyone could expect. They have been on both sides of the fence as well and I truly believe that they want it to be a good experience for both sides.

Unfortunately our dealings with Weneedavacation.com were simply not satisfactory. We attempted to leave a review of our expierence with one of their Lessor's on their website. It was declined because it was about a financial matter with the renter and per their "policy" they refuse to post these type of reviews. We offered to re-write the review to provide feedback to future renters of our experience with this particular Lessor on their site. They refused. Again siting that if a review is declined once it can not be resubmitted.

So in this case it is truly a buyer beware situation... I'm sure they have happy clients but it also makes you question their business practices in a market that is highly dependent on other customers perosnal experiences. I'm sure they are feeling the heat from other comapnies like Airbnb who are more robust and able to compete much more effeciently in their space. I certainly can understand their desire to protect their business from these types of competitive threats but not allowing customers to provide honest feedback about their expeirence will eventually erode the confidence of their clientele.

The matter we were attempting to adress involved a renter that withheld our deposit past the agreed time outlined in their contract without notifying us and then made accusations about broken items in their property that were not.

Eventually our deposit was returned but it was not without hassle and unproffesionalism on the lessors part.

Perception is everything and our perception was tainted by the Lessor's unprofessinoal manner and we were further frustrated when were dismissed by a "policy" to warn other renters of our expeirence on weneedavacation.com. The whole experience is now percieved as a pain and we will not be using weneedavacaton.com again and encourage others to look elsewhere when they are looking for a rental on the cape.

We've been listing our West Tisbury home on We Need A Vacation for over 10yrs and love it. The staff is always helpful and responsive - and I'm very techno-challenged. We are listed on several other sites but most of our renters come through this site...and it seems that we get fewer "tire kickers" from We Need than VRBO or Home Away. Great job...love working with you.
Kathy W

I am here. Please resend. Searched and could not find a recent email. I will call you once we make contact. Please re-send email to the email address on file. I will look for it on Wednesday, March 22, 2017

I am sorry to see that a person had the same problem we had renting last July from we need a vacation and this company will not help a renter only the landlord who pays them . They hide behind a review system that protects the landlord . Hope they will wake up and change the way they run this site ! Also we have photos of the food that was found under the stove and refrigerator and the mouse droppings in the loft and the cleaning lady agreed the home needed updating and she has been after the landlord to do work to the home . By the time Weneedavacation looked at the home 2 weeks later I am sure he cleaned up the place . I never told the landlord I would put up a review and only asked for a small refund as we finally had to leave 2 days early as we could not stand the condition of the home . And as far as the price we paid $1800. It was not worth that and funny it was offered at $1500. For the week after we left ! We have rented homes on MV for years and never had a problem and rent our own home in FL through VRBO and would never think of putting a tenant through what we found when we arrived at this rental . Again use a site like VRBO to rent a home and not this site that is ONLY WORKING FOR THE PERSON RENTING TO YOU AND YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN ! PS It was listed as a 3 Bedroom we have a copy of the listing and we would not have rented it if it had said a children's Loft !

My gf and I own a house on the cape in eastham, and the first year we used a rental company, since we live in NJ , they charged us 17 percent of every rental. and all they did was hand out keys, book reservations, and have an answering service report problems that i had to fix, it was crazy. So thankfully i found we need a vacation and we have been with them for 4 years,, they charge a one time reasonable fee to post your house plus 14 pictures , they are extremely helpful if you need assistance and are very friendly. They post a blog with helpful hints, and a homeowner provider list , and they do homeowners forums that you can go to live, or this year they streamed the event. They provide a sign you out in your yard so people driving past can get the info, and most importantly they just give you a rental inquiry , so after i get one i am in charge of communicating with the prospective tenant, answer any questions they have and i feel like i have at least a relationship with the person that is renting my house, instead of other sites that just take the booking without me having any control. They know the cape area very well, i cant recommend them highly enough.