Search on the site to find properties you’re interested in, and contact owners directly with any questions about their property.
Use the search box located on the left of every page, or try an Advanced Search.
Click one of the regions on the homepage map and continue until you find properties you’re interested in. Most of your questions should be answered on the property listing pages.
Click the 'Save to Shortlist' button on any property listing page to bookmark properties you’re interested in. Then visit the Shortlist page to view the properties you’ve saved and make enquiries.
To make a booking, contact the owner or manager directly from the information on the property listing - either e-mail or phone them. Please mention Holiday Houses when you contact them.
During peak times, it may take longer for the owner or manager to respond to your message. Please wait at least three business days to hear back from them.
We are unable to book properties on your behalf.
Please contact the owner or manager directly.
If you have an issue with how we've handled your credit or funds, we can help resolve your issue here.
Security is vital when it comes to booking a place to stay online. We want to help keep you safe, so here are six simple things to bear in mind when booking a holiday house:
For more information on keeping yourself safe, visit Trade Me’s 'Safe Computing Centre'.
And remember, if an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
We have two pricing models for house owners. You can either Pay Per House with our subscription plan or Pay Per Booking with our commission plan.
Pay Per House is our subscription model.
You pay us a listing fee to show your house on the site. Your Pay Per House listings receive enquiries from renters, and you do not pay any commission on bookings that you get from enquiries through the site.
Please note you are not able to offer online credit card payments to renters if you choose this model.
Our standard Pay Per House pricing depends on the listing tier you use.
Tier | Price | Description |
---|---|---|
Classic | $279 per year | Our standard listing |
Silver | $599 per year | Higher exposure: nearly double the leads of Classic listings* |
Gold | $1199 per year | Our highest exposure: three times leads of Classic listings* |
*Based on enquiries from 1 September 2014 to 31 August 2015
Silver listings received 171% of Classic leads per house. Gold listings received 295% of Classic leads per house.
We offer generous discounts to owners with multiple houses. Our current discount structure is as follows.
1 house | Full price |
2 to 4 houses | 12.5% |
5 to 9 houses | 15% |
10 to 29 houses | 20% |
30 to 49 houses | 25% |
Please contact us if you have more than 50 houses to discuss our pricing options and what we can offer you to maximise your exposure on the site.
When we invoice you the discount we apply is determined by looking at the number of valid listings you have on your account with us. To count as a valid listing the house must be on a 12 month term and have a current paid invoice.
When your houses are renewed they will all receive the same discount.
When you add a new house you might enter a new discount range in which case we’ll apply that discount on the new house, and when we renew your houses they will all receive the same discount.
We also offer short term listing options. These listings do not qualify for Multiple House Discounts.
Short term listings can be attractive if only want to list your house out for a limited amount of time (over summer for instance). Don’t forget that renters are looking for holiday accommodation all year round, and many baches receive bookings for the busy summer period during winter. To maximise your chance of fully booking out your bach you might want to consider having the house visible on the site all year, but blocking out unavailable dates in the calendar. The Pay Per Booking model is ideal for this situation, as you only pay for bookings you receive, not how long you spend on the site.
Our short term listing prices are:
Tier | One month | Three month | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Classic | $69 | $129 | Our standard listing |
Silver | $99 | $219 | Higher exposure: nearly double the leads of Classic listings* |
Gold | $169 | $429 | Our highest exposure: three times leads of Classic listings* |
*Based on enquiries from 1 September 2014 to 31 August 2015
Silver listings received 171% of Classic leads per house. Gold listings received 295% of Classic leads per house.
Find out more about listing tiers
Create your holiday house listing
Pay Per Booking is our commission model.
A commission is paid on each successful booking you receive through the site. Payment is taken online using our secure credit card processing facility. There is no additional fee for credit card processing.
You can choose to accept bookings instantly or 'on request'. With 'on request' bookings we send you a booking request from the renter which you can accept or decline. We charge the renter when you accept the booking.
Tier | Commission | Description |
---|---|---|
Classic | 9% | Our standard listing |
Silver | 12% | Higher exposure: nearly double the leads of Classic listings* |
Gold | 15% | Our highest exposure: almost three times leads of Classic listings* |
*Based on enquiries from 1 September 2014 to 31 August 2015
Silver listings received 171% of Classic leads per house. Gold listings received 295% of Classic leads per house.
Find out more about listing tiers
NOTE: Pay Per Booking listings do not qualify for multiple house discounts as described in the Pay Per House section above.
When you have a Pay Per Booking house we will send you booking requests from interested renters. You have the option to accept or decline these bookings and we will charge you commission on any accepted bookings.
You can accept or decline bookings on our site by clicking the button on the email we send you, or by logging into your Holiday Houses account and clicking "View all enquiries" for the appropriate house. Please respond to booking requests as soon as you can so the renter can find alternative arrangements if you can’t accommodate them.
We will charge you commission on all accepted bookings. We do not charge commission on any bookings you decline or cancel.
We will charge the renter’s credit card when you accept the booking. We will do this immediately if you have selected instant confirmation, or we will wait until you respond to our booking request email if you have chosen 'on request'.
We know many Holiday Houses owners want to talk to their guests before approving their booking, so we include the renter's details in the request we send you. That means you can easily contact the renter directly before you accept the booking if you need extra information from them.
No, we only charge for bookings that go ahead. That means if you accept a booking but have to cancel it at a later date you won’t get charged commission.
That's not a problem. We know that bookings sometimes fall through, so you can easily cancel an accepted booking through your holiday houses account. View your bookings by clicking "View all enquiries" for the appropriate house.
You need to create an account to list a property. Fill in as many details about your property as you can, and add plenty of photos – it will save people contacting you with unnecessary questions.
Just login to edit your listing at any time.
We've made some improvements to the booking calendar.
You can now import external calendars that support the iCal format into Holiday Houses to make it easier for you to manage your calendar. The benefit of this is that all dates your holiday house is booked for will display in the calendar regardless of which site the booking occurred, so you won't have renters enquiring about dates that aren’t available, or double booking. The imported calendar/s will synchronise every 30 minutes, or when you click the refresh icon. Days blocked by an imported calendar will be displayed on the calendar with striped gray cells. You can easily remove the calendar by clicking the trash icon - all of the events associated with that calendar will also be removed.
Step 1: Log into your house details and go to your booking calendar under 'Bookings and enquiries'
Step 2: Click the link 'Import calendar' and a pop up box will appear
Step 3: Name the calendar you're importing and paste in its URL. Click import.
Your imported calendar will show blocked out dates with greyed out boxes.
You can also export your Holiday Houses calendar so you can keep your other calendars that support the iCal format synchronised. The export includes dates booked through Holiday Houses, and excludes those imported from other calendars. Please note that every listing on your Holiday Houses account has it's own calendar, which will need to be exported individually.
Step 1: Log into your house details and go into your booking calendar under 'Bookings and enquiries'
Step 2: Click the link 'Export calendar' and a pop up box will appear
Step 3: Copy the URL. You can the pase this into your other calendar applications.
Once you confirm a booking in the system, the renter will automatically receive an email from us encouraging them to leave a review after they have checked out. Renters can rate your property from one to five stars and leave feedback about their experience.
In order to recognise an enquiry as an official booking, we need you to add the enquiry to your booking calendar. To do this, please follow the following steps:
Step 1: Log into your Holiday Houses "My Account" page.
Step 2: Click on view all enquiries/bookings
Step 3: Click on "Create a calendar booking from this enquiry"
Once the booking has been added to your calendar, the renter will automatically receive an email from us to leave a review after they have checked out.
If you don’t follow these steps and add the enquiry to your calendar, we won’t know that the enquiry converted to a booking, and therefore we will not prompt the renter to leave a review.
This tells us that your guests have had an incredible stay and the feedback will be visible on your listing immediately.
We’ll review this first to make sure it’s in line with our terms and conditions. If approved by our customer service team, it will be made visible on your listing.
Holiday Houses is promoted online and offline and receives over 200,000 visitors per month (statistic from Google Analytics).
Your listing will appear in search results when people search for properties in your area, from the main region to the suburb, for certain keywords (e.g. swimming pool, beach) and by price and availability.
Our prices vary depending on how much exposure you want. We use a lot of factors to determine your position in search rankings, but for default searches (where the renter has not specifically ordered the results themselves) we separate the houses by listing tier.
NOTE: Pay Per Booking houses receive a significant boost in our search rankings.
Tier | Position | Description |
---|---|---|
Gold | Top of the page. Ahead of Silver and Classic listings. |
Our highest exposure: three times the leads of Classic listings! Gold listings received 295% of Classic leads per house from 1 September 2014 to 31 August 2015 Your house will appear in our Super Feature rotator at the very top of search pages, and will also appear as a Silver listing. The Super Feature rotator shows our gold houses in random order. |
Silver | Ahead of Classic listings |
Higher exposure: nearly double the leads of Classic listings! Silver listings received 171% of Classic leads per house from 1 September 2014 to 31 August 2015 Your house appears below the Super Feature rotator, but ahead of Classic listings. |
Classic | Standard positioning in search rankings |
Our standard listing. Your house appears below Gold and Silver listings. |
We will continue to develop and expand Holiday Houses. We can be contacted here if you would like further information.
All pre-paid listings are non-refundable. This includes (but is not limited to) where you choose to remove your house from the site before your listing period is up.
If you have an issue with how we've handled your credit or funds, we can help resolve your issue here.
In order to keep your property in top-notch condition, and keep your guests safe, we recommend the following:
We recommend that you check with your insurance provider to ensure you have adequate coverage in the unlikely event that something goes wrong while a guest is occupying your property. It may be worth taking out public liability insurance on top of your home and contents insurance to ensure your home is covered for rental activities – talk to an insurance expert for advice.
Any money you get from renting out your bach, house, a room, a caravan or a sleep-out is taxable.
To get your taxes right you:
Visit the Inland Revenue website to learn more. (http://www.ird.govt.nz/property/property-rental)