Help. I'm planning on going to Rome in April. I found an apartment on the internet that I like in Trastevere on Vicolo del Cedro, but it's handled by at least four different agencies in Rome: roma.city apartments.it; rentalinrome.com; guestinitaly.com; ulysseholidays.com Does anyone have any experience with any of these agencies? I have heard some real horror stories about a few others, and I want to use one that is reliable and professional. Can anyone recommend a great rental agency other than these four I listed above? Thanks.

I may be off base here, but I'd be hesitant to rent any apartment that lists with four different agencies. They all want to rent it. If you have it booked for the second week in June and another agency has someone who wants it then, they will likely contact the owners and try to offer them more money and you could be out in the street. I can't imagine why anyone would list their apartment with that many agencies in the first place. Good apartments will be rented easily. Why is this one so hard to rent that they need that many people trying?

Hi fusaichi,

I was in Rome this past November, and had a very good experience with sleepinitaly.com. Giulia always answered my emails promptly, and was also very nice to speak with on the phone. The apartment was great, and just as advertised. I would use them again.

I have also used sleepinitaly.com and they were great.

let me 3rd it, sleepinitaly was very good. will use again when in roma.

Hi -

We rented from Sleepinitaly for our honeymoon fall 2003. I posted when we returned about a not so favourable experience. Funnily enough, we chose to rent Vicolo del Cedro as well. We learned (the hard way) that renting an apartment involves risk. We ended up staying at a different apartment (Via de Genovesi-studio) as we were told that our choice was not available due to plumbing issues.

Our issues were;
(1) No one came to meet us at Vicolo del Cedro at the pre-arranged time.
(2) After phoning them to find out where they were, they told us our apartment was not available and they gave us the address of the substitute apartment.
(3) They did not come to the substitute apartment - we were met by the owners only. The substitute apartment was not of the same standard (smaller, no terrace,no private entrance, no washing machine).
(4) The apartment had ants, the furniture was in disrepair (all but one dining room chair was broken), the toilet seat was broken.
(4) We had no hot water for the three nights we were there. This was miraculously fixed on the day we were slated to leave and we were negotiating payment for the apartment.
(5) The apartment was entered by others in our absence as we could smell smoke in the bathroom and the toilet seat was also fixed. Again all of this just before we were to leave.

Our stay was tainted by poor service and we will not use them again. At least Sleep in Italy relented as we negotiated the price. It did not really make up for the inconvenience we went through. However, it appears that our experience is one of the few negative ones that have been posted here. In any case, I will still consider renting for future trips but only for longer stays and not from Sleep in Italy.

I've used these two websites (actually booked places) with great results:

Rentvillas.com
Romeby.com

Good Luck!!

fusaichi,
I think the best source for checking on apartments and agencies is slow trav check http://www.slowtrav.com/italy/review...onforlist=Rome
to find your apartment and agency.
I would not be any more worried about an apartment that used four agencies than I would about an airline that used four agencies.

I just returned from Rome and had a wonderful rental experience with www.romepower.com. Alessandro and Marco were delighful to work with and their web site is most detailed with pictures of each room and explanation of location. Give them a chance, and I think you'll have a positive rental experience.

I have been scouring the internet for the last month searching for apartments, and I have found that most apartments are listed with more than one agency. I would imagine they want more exposure and that's why they list them with a lot of different websites.

We used www.guestinitaly.com to rent an apartment in spring 01. We had no problems at all, and didn't even consider that it might have been listed with other agencies. I just did a search, and sure enough, it's also listed on some of them that you mentioned. Regardless, we had no problems with either the agency or the owners themselves.

I don't get the comparison of listing an apartment with four agencies and selling airline tickets via four agencies. If there was only one airline ticket for sale, then yes, it would be a logical comparison, but in fact the four different agencies are selling different airline tickets as there are a lot of them.

As mentioned above and we've seen examples, when an apartment is represented by several agencies, they are all trying to rent it. And yet there is only one apartment. So each agency may "confirm" it with a customer, then get outbid with the owners by another agency. That is exactly why Hana's experience was that they got moved to a substitute apartment.

A really good apartment in Rome that is fairly priced doesn't need four different agencies representing it. Repeat customers and word of mouth will do the job. If an owner lists with four different agencies, it's probably for one of two reasons. Either it has been a hard apartment to get rented, or the owner would like several agencies trying to get more money for the apartment and will give it up to the agency that gets the best price. Listing with two agencies, I can understand, but four?