I am trying to find a gite/cottage/house rental in Provence for next June. I thought I'd started early enough, only to find the first two possibilities already booked.

Because of our budget, I'm not looking at renting through an agency anymore, but with the owners themselves. I've trawled through most of the usual sites (vrbo, french connections, etc.) and have found a handful of properties from there and from sites like Gites de France and Luberonweb.

The trouble is that there is so little information attached to many of the houses in which I'm interested, and slowtrav.com and even Google have turned up nothing on a couple of them.

Short of contacting the owners directly in halting (or to be honest, very poor) French, is there another way of investigating the houses and looking for reviews that I have not thought of?

Phyllis.
I have this url bookmarked because it looked interesting and I was in the Grasse area a couple of

I found the house we're renting in Homelidays.com...we only have dealt with the owner.

Lots to choose from as well.

We booked a little house in St. Tropez and I'll sleep there this Saturday night! YAAAAY!

Duh. I just didn't finish before I posted.

I know of this rental but have never been there. You would deal directly with the owners.

It may not be exactly what you are looking for but give it a try.

www.musicetc.us/La Belle Cour.

Oh dear, oh dear -- those who've replied have misunderstood me -- I don't need MORE house suggestions, I need to know how to check up on the fistful of places I've already found.

I'm grateful for your help, though.

Can anybody give me some advice on how to find more info on houses I've already seen?

The main problem is you are looking at individual properties that might only have 20-30 families stay in any year. Unlike a hotel which can have 30 or 40 new check-in's every day. So the pool of possible sources of info about a self catering cottage/villa/apartment will be VERY small. And when you subtract the folks who aren't on line or don't post reviews anywhere - it is completely normal to not find specific info about a house.

I don't bother w/ TA or other sites for individually-owned rentals like this. Basically I have to rely on the web site and what I know about the specific area.

Look at SlowTravel.com. They do have reviews on individually owned apartments/houses, etc. They may have some of your properties listed and reviewed.

Sorry, just reread your original post and saw you already looked at Slowtrav.com.

I know that this is not what you were looking for but we have done numerous rentals in Paris and in various parts of France.

We've rented from agencies and owners - and to tell you the truth, we had equal results.

Owners have totally mislead us as to the condition of the rental, cleanliness, furnishings, etc.. They know there own properties and are lying through their teeth, including pictures.

Agencies may or may not know the property personally, so even though they may not be deliberately misleading you, they are selling something that they have no first hand knowledge of. This is probably true in most rentals in smaller areas of the country.

Of course landlords won't do a thing for you if they initially mislead you, aside from maybe an emergency repair, and that's only if they are near by or have a local representative. For most agencies, especially in the US or a country other than that of the rental, it is merely a listing to them, and so they will do nothing for you.

Years ago we booked a gite outside of Arles through a local agency in our area of Northern California. She had never seen it as it was actually through an English agency. Well.... it turned out to be a filty, disgusting place, badly in need of new mattresses, pillows etc.. and was in very very poor condition. Before we vacated, we contacted the local rep from the English company and he just about laughed in our faces, telling us that this was one of their most popular units and that 'you Americans are too picky". We moved out after one night, moving even faster when awoke to no hot water because they would be working on the pipes for a day or so!!!!!!!!

It was a mas (farm) with several rental units, and the owners had actually showed us through it as if it was Versailles, warning us to avoid the broken interior stair!

They weren't there when we left the next day, so we never notified them, just left a note.

After being insulted by the English rep, we called the U.S. agency and I can't tell you how much she did for us. She contacted the English agency herself and I don't know what they did, but when we got home, we sent her the pictures that she told us to take, and she refunded everything, including her commission. Plus that was before email and cheap phone rates, and she paid us for the calls we made to her from France, and she called us several times - at the hotel that we were lucky enough to book on such short notice. Ville et Village is the agency name. The owner was Carolyn, I see their ads, but I don't know if she is still the owner. Nice nice lady.

As for paying agencies more, that may or may not be the case. Owners often ask hefty prices knowing that the agencies would be able to ask the same. A lot of them never use agencies and so there is no way for you to know if the rent would be more or less. One place we were considering this year was only less than $40 less per week than the agency that was also handling it. That was probably a rare case when you would know exactly how much more the agency is charging.

At least you can complain to an agency - although that doesn't always mean much.

Back to your question.... it is a crap shoot. If you can't find any personal recommendations here or on any other site, you have to go with your gut feeling. I'm sure that you know not to pay attention to the references on their site, "Love it, near everything ... Pierre was so helpful, would stay there again in a heartbeat. George and Betty L., Atlanta, GA"

Also, asking an owner for a recommendation that who you can contact ... samething. They would never give you the name of someone that hated the place or had a problem.

Bottom line - it's all dumped back in your lap.

I wish posters would give good or bad recommendations with the address in the title line. It would be so much easier to do a search, on an individual apartment, house etc... Maybe someone here has rented the same place.

Nina

In situations where I can't find external apartment/villa reviews, I rely on the information that is presented on the villa’s website (do they list room size, show photos, etc.), then I follow up with the owner with specific questions and gauge how well they answer these. But ultimately I trust my instincts and take my chances. (We just returned from two weeks in Switzerland in three separate apartments—two were fabulous and one was so-so.)

A language barrier complicates things but it's not impossible: we rented a great apartment in Trier from a German family who had halting English (thank goodness since we had no German to speak of).

You could also post the names of the specific villas here that you're interested in or request referrals from the owners (I rarely do this—since if I feel that way already I know I'm not comfortable and probably won’t be reassured by their selected references).

Best of luck!

Surprisingly, I have actually met and corresponded with the owners of the Music and Markets tours, whose house is mentioned above. If it helps at all, they are very nice, very honest people. I liked them a lot when we met, and we emailed for a few years after that. We have been out of touch, but I feel safe in saying they are good, reliable people.

Sorry about the typos. I know that their is not spelled there.

I edited my post making numerous corrections, adding and subtracting pararaphs etc... and then hit 'post my reply' and none of my changes took. This has happened to me before and really bothers me.

This was included in my post at the bottom and never made it there ....

Please post a trip report, good or bad, they are so informative.

Also let us know what you decide on, you never know who might read it - maybe someone who knows the place.

Enjoy your trip,

Nina

I can suggest three things:

- post the listings you are considering here on Fodors. Some of us have rented a pile of houses in Provence (seven in my case if you consider Uzès as being in Provence), so someone might recognize a place they have rented or considered and give you some additional information.

- it looks like you've already "cross-googled" the listing and see if you can turn up any additional references to it on the Internet. Play with the wording a bit For example, if you are looking at a French Connections listing in Goult, google "Goult house rental" and then "rental properties Goult". You may happen upon the owner's own website (with more photos) or a different listing for the same house. We have had success with searching for additional information this way.

- go ahead and e-mail the owners with whatever questions you have. In fact, it is a great way to get a sense of what they're like. You'll find that most of the owners who list properties on French Connections, Holiday Rentals, and vrbo are English speaking (in fact, many of these houses are the vacation homes of people living in England). If your heart is set on a place listed on the Gîtes de France website (www.gites-de-france.fr/eng/index.htm the official G-de-F website), it is more likely that the owners are French speaking. If I couldn't formulate my questions in French, I'd ask in English anyway. It will work out one way or another--market forces and all that.

June is a very popular time to rent, but I wouldn't get discouraged yet. Have you a particular area of Provence in mind?

Anselm

Thank you all so much -- you've given me a lot of food for thought. I will sleep on this and come up with a plan for contacting the owners ... and getting over my jitters.

It strikes me as very odd that I neglected to use one of the best sources I know -- Fodor's Travel Talk!!

I'll pen a separate post with some of the properties tomorrow.

I'm looking at the Vaucluse, both the Luberon and Haut Vaucluse.

Thanks again, all.

Phyllis: My sister-in-law lives in Ste.Maxime and has two rentals. They are listed at ownerdirect.com Her unit numbers are 47639 and 47641. She would be happy to answer any questions you have and can give you references of Americans who have stayed there. jkr2006

Thanks to everyone who responded -- so thoughtfully -- to my original post.

I have not been able to post for a while, and in the meantime, I went ahead and jumped, reserving two different houses for our two weeks in Provence. Part of my trouble had been an inability to choose between the Luberon and Haut Vaucluse; finally decided to split the stay between the two.

We'll be in the Luberon for the first week, staying at a place I found through the Alastair Sawday site. It's near Rustrel and opened for business just this past summer. The owner has been fantastic at responding to my emails.

I booked through the Gites de France site for the second week -- a house near Malaucene. Every time I checked the availablility calendar for that house, there were fewer available weeks ... so I just decided to book.

I guess my attempts at research were somewhat in vain, since it the end gut instinct overwhelmed reason.

Check back next summer to see how it all worked out...! And thanks again for your help.

We will be in Provence in May so let us know if you have any gems to recommend for one week.
Thanks!

Philbill, the first three the places I liked best were already taken, and although I suppose May is a little easier than June, I would recommend you get started. There were plenty of houses I've seen with limited availability for May, too.

We are looking for 3-bedroom places; what do you need? I may have some suggestions for you.

2 minimum but 3 would be better.
Thanks!
Philbill

I liked LeMourre, in the Luberon, a B&B with several cottages. One has 3 bedrooms, others have 2. The 3 bedroom was booked for our dates.(www.lemourre.com)

There was a place on vrbo.com I liked too: 18863. The owner was so charming (via e-mail) and very prompt in replying to my queries. It's still showing availability for May.

Well, those were my first two picks.

Since I've made my reservations, I've deleted ALL the bookmarks I had, on the principle of not looking back... I had tons.

Another good source for me was luberonweb.com; they had plenty of attractive listings for 3 bedrooms and a pool.

(This is a bit like giving someone your "Little Black Book", isn't it?)

Good luck, Philbill. And keep us posted!