And why wouldn't ebay have vacation rental property, since it has everything else? On any given day there are more than a thousand listings for properties around the world. You'll find rental properties under travel, lodging, and vacation rentals. Who are the people behind the ebay listings? Mostly, they are large property rental outfits using the internet to augment business. A few are individual private owners. The lowest prices are usually offered by the private owners.

Ebay 101

Using the ebay internet auction site has become America's (and a good portion of the world's) fastest way to sell an item. You can browse ebay without registering, but to participate in buying or selling an item you must register and establish an ebay user i.d. and a password. Although you're only interested in renting vacation property, not purchasing it, you will be acting as a "buyer" on ebay because by winning the auction you are, in a sense, buying the right to rent. The seller determines what payment methods he will accept. One popular payment method is provided by a company named PayPal. Both the seller and the buyer have their own PayPal accounts. When a sell is completed the buyer alerts PayPal to move funds from his account into the account of the seller. The transfer is completed immediately.

What's Available

Where are ebay rental properties located? A recent look at ebay's website found properties in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Poconos, Florida, Las Vegas, the Smokey Mountains, the Caribbean, Jamaica, Spain, Mexico, Canada, New Zealand, Budapest, Umbria, Paris, Florence, London, Reykjavik and Rio De Janeiro. The properties included townhouses, condos, and villas available by the day or week.

Ask Questions

Ebay has convenient features for research. Click on "Ask seller a question" and you're taken to a form where you can submit a question to the seller. You are limited to 1000 characters per message, but you can send as many additional questions as you please. You must be registered to send a question.

You can also see what other buyers have had to say about the rental property by clicking on "Read feedback comments." Ideally, you're looking for sellers with spotless records, meaning all their feedback has been positive. If a seller's record has negative feedback, be sure you're comfortable with the seller's printed explanation before you bid. Once again, you must be registered to use this feature.

Too Excited? Just Chill

The excitement surrounding an auction can be overwhelming. Before you bid determine the maximum amount you are willing to pay and then stick to that amount.

Ebay uses proxy bidding, which means you can enter your maximum bid and ebay will use only enough of your amount as necessary to make you the current top bidder. As competitors bid against you your bid automatically increases to keep you as the top bidder. The only way someone else can become the top bidder is to bid an amount greater than your maximum bid.