Alan

Thanks largely to the tips I found on this board, I managed to find some really good deals on apartment rental in Amsterdam, Paris, Florence, Rome, and Venice.... the type where you contact the owner directly, and get much better prices than if you deal through an agent. However, I can't find much on apartments in Vienna, and google hasn't been much help: just agents' websites. Has anyone got any hot tips they'd like to share? Thanks!

Alan

Anybody got any hot tips?

Alan

Well, maybe I should contribute something before I expect replies. The ones I have found so far (not exclusively Vienna, so maybe travellers looking for other cities would find these useful) are:
www.nomorehotels.com ("off-air" quite a lot lately)
www.homelidays.com
www.homeexchange.com
www.holiday-home.com

Maybe someone can add better ones. Please!

Travelnick

Could try the newspaper websites - www.kurier.at and die presse. They have apartment rentals on line. For centre of town there are very few places that do not go through an agent - when we rented here, we saw one place out of about 50 with no agent. My landlord, Orag, I think does short term rental on 1-2 of their properties - they have a web site as well and have a number of Palace properties in the centre. But not a lot of stuff here in short term furnished market. Also look at www.starlighthotels.com, for suite hotel rentals - for over a month I was quoted euro 70 per night, gives you one bedroom place in centre - go for Renngasse location. Another short term apartment rental that I stayed in was Singerstrasse - I think web site is under that name. More expensive than Starlight as slightly beeter fittings and has hot plates + microwave + dishwasher (SS only has microwave), but Starlight better value. If you cannot find Singerstrasse on web site, reply and I shall look it up.

Alan

Thanks, Travelnick! I should have guessed that it would be you who would come to my rescue, as I have read (and been appreciative of) your posts before.
I have already checked two of the websites you recommended, and will do the others right away. Hopefully, your post will start the ball rolling and a few more people will chime in with suggestions.

Budman

Alan,

Try this site. I rented a place near Salzburg and dealt directly with the owner.

http://www.vacationvillas.net/

Alan

Thank you, Budman! That is EXACTLY what I was looking for.... and my very next question was going to be about Budapest, and your site takes care of that, too!
Maybe now this thread will (at last) "pick up" and we can make it a pretty comprehensive list of this kind of site, which I think has a lot more going for it for a family (as we are) than the endless hotel agents' sites listing singles and doubles -- with an occasional triple. Here's another site I found recently which didn't get a mention in the list above:

www.vrbo.com/

Anyone have any more?

rootcher

Alan, where did you rent an apartment in Venice? Can you give me a tip about how to find a good deal? We are looking for a two bedroom for a family of 5. Thanks, Sandy

dianeMarie

Last Sept we used www.guestinitaly.com to find apartments in Venice, Florence & Rome. Everything was fine. It is hard to tell from the web site pictures what the apartments are like in size and quality, but they were all clean and had everything we needed. The problem in Florence was with the street noise and in Venice the furnishing were old. They all had washing machines, which was very nice.