How to Build a Real Estate Vacation Rental Website on WordPress
The market trends are clear. More and more property owners are turning to vacation rentals as a source of income. This is supported by NAR statistics, and the explosion of property rental businesses in the last few years. All these homeowners need to find and market to vacation renters. And one of the ways is to build a vacation rental website.
If you are a real estate agent or a homeowner with a portfolio of properties, you can build a specialty site to list your homes for rent and allow customers to book online.
Realtyna’s WPL Plugin for WordPress allows you to customize your property listings for short-term rentals, long-term rentals or any other property type you might need. Or if your MLS lists vacation rentals in their database you can import them automatically.
What Is Realtyna’s WPL?
WPL is an advanced WordPress plugin that allows you to transform an ordinary WordPress website into one that hosts vacation rental listings and property searches. You can consider it a vacation rental website builder, although it is capable of much much more. WPL has a flexible data layer, which allows you to define new listing types, features, and amenities.
You can standardize these objects and use them across your site.
For example, with WPL, you can create a special property type, add features that are particular to this property, and then publish it online. You can also pair WPL with Organic MLS Integration to connect to your MLS and import vacation listings.
How Can I Use WPL to Create My Own Vacation Rental Listings?
Creating vacation listings in WPL is easy. You will define a new property type then use it to create vacation rental listings. Each time you will complete your listing template with property details and descriptions just like you do for the MLS. Then you will publish. We have step-by-step instructions below.
Step 1
Add or select Vacation Property
Navigate to WPL > Data Structure. Then click the “+” symbol to define a new property type.
Step 2
Choose a Category
Select Residential as your new listing category.
Step 3
Create a Listing
Navigate to WPL > Listing Manager. Click “Add a Listing.” Select your new property type. Then select vacation rental as the listing type.
You can now complete the listing and publish. With the Booking Add-on, you can accept and manage reservations.
How Can I Use WPL to Import Vacation Rentals From My MLS?
If your MLS includes vacation rental listings, you can import them directly to your WordPress site with WPL and Organic MLS Integration. Depending on your business model, you may want to filter and download vacation rental listings exclusively. Or you can include them in a full listing download. Both options are possible with WPL.
Here are the step-by-step instructions. If you do not have database experience, do not worry! Realtyna technicians will take care of the setup and configuration of your data feed.
Step 1
Acquire MLS Credentials
Reach out to your MLS administrator to get a RETS feed for your website. Then, navigate to WPL > MLS add-on and insert your username and password.
Step 2
Query Database for Vacation Rentals
Realtyna technicians will map data fields between your MLS and your WordPress website. Then, they will query the MLS for vacation rentals and download them to your site. New downloads will occur at regular intervals to ensure your site is always up-to-date.
Step 3
Verify
You and Realtyna technicians will complete a front-end quality check to ensure your data feed is running accurately and efficiently.
Now you know how to build a real estate vacation rental website on WordPress. Questions or feedback? Leave them in the comments. Or for more real estate website tips, check out How to Add Yelp to Your Real Estate Listings.
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