I’m jazzed! My wife and I have been looking for a vacation rental or timeshare rental (gasp!) to spend a week on the beach in either North Carolina or South Carolina. There are some amenities which are important to us, especially now that we have a one year old daughter. Requirements:

1) On the ocean with a deck overlooking the ocean
2) Kiddie splash pool for our daughter
3) Short walk to the beach
4) Very nice pool with umbrellas
5) 2 bedroom + / 2 bath with king bed and high speed wireless Internet
6) Dining on site or very close
7) updated rooms with nice beds
exercise facility
9) within 6 hours of our home in North Carolina
10) Reasonable weekly rates

Then today, while reviewing the new listings for the day, I noticed that the development team at Grande Villas on Emerald Isle in Indian Beach, North Carolina had posted a couple of listings for their 2 bedroom and 3 bedroom vacation rental condos. That place looks amazing! Here is their vacation rental widget from their listing, click on the widget to view more details:

Oceanfront Villa with Fitness Center & Club Lounge United States » North Carolina » Atlantic Beach   View This Listing at VacationRentalDirect.com   3 Bedrooms & 3 Full Baths on the Ocean! Imagine feeling the sand between your toes & hearing the waves crash against the shore as you refresh your soul at your new oceanfront retreat.   Property Details Listing: 13950 Type: Condo Sleeps : 6 to 8 Bed(s): 3 Bed(s): 3 Pets: Yes Children: Yes Pool :Yes Smoking: No Amenities Air Condition Phone Washers & Dryer DVD Player Stove Internet

Contact: Nathan Wax        Phone: (252) 354-3315

Vacation Rentals By Owner | VacationRentalDirect.com | Vacation Homes

I don’t like direct linking to the website of competitors, but the rental team at Emerald Isle Realty has done a nice job of promoting the units on their website, check it out.

Update 2/23/09: My wife and I got a great deal from Nathan at Emerald Isle on a 3 bedroom unit at Grande Villas in late May. Make sure to ask Nathan if they have any specials! I’ll take lots of pictures and videos and post them we we get back!

I am always checking out other vacation rental sites that are for sale. I expect over the next couple of years there will be many that come up for sale. On the surface it would seem somewhat easy to make money owning a vacation rental listing site. However, the reality is that to generate enough inquiries to satisfy a vacation rental owner, requires a lot of targeted traffic each month. So while a vacation rental site may con a few ignorant property owners into signing up in a given year, the reality is that if no inquiries or business is generated, that customer won’t renew the next year.

I’m glad that I am a vacation rental owner, it really helps when I am determining what features are important to develop on VacationRentalDirect.com. Hopefully someday this site will become profitable, but at the moment, it’s not a high priority for me. My priority is serving my customers and developing the traffic levels required to make their business successful.

This vacation rental listing site recently came for sale on SitePoint.com. I wouldn’t touch it with a 10 foot pole. Especially since it used Joomla with a plugin. But I’ll list it here, as the bidding is currently up to $20,000+.

VrpDirect.com

I also found a vacation rental listing site for sale on bizbuysell.com the other day, but that must have sold, because the business broker I was talking with about it, just dropped off the face of the earth and I don’t see it listed any longer.