Welcome to Direct Home Rentals. This short tutorial is intended to familiarize the new Agent/Owner with how to get started. Our team would like to extend a thank you for choosing Direct Home Rentals to list your rental property. We offer free support to all members, so don’t hesitate to contact us with your questions or comments.

Control Panel

The control panel was designed to be the central work space for rental agents/owners. Three main functions can be preformed from the control panel; Create New Listing, Edit My Account and Edit My Listing. Two additional features are available the Booking Agent Manager and the Stats (Web Statistics).

Creating New Listings

From the Control Panel you can create listings by clicking the create listing icon. The first step in creating a listing is selecting a property class. The property class refers to the general category the rental falls in. Please refer to the table below for the recommend property class. The table is intended to be used as a guide. You can suggest an additional property class to the administrator.

Complete the property detail page and submit your information. Field with * asterisks are required. Please take care to fill all fields in accurately.

For detailed instructions on entering fields click here.

You will next be prompted to activate your listing by paying for the listing package of your choice. Once your listing is active you can modify your listing and upload your photos.

Edit My Profile

It is very important for members to complete the contact information on the edit account page. This information is used by prospective tenants to contact you, the rental agent or property owner. Members will also be allowed to have one link to their personal website, a photo, and a brief description. This information will be displayed on our Members page and on each listing that belongs to the member.

Edit My Listings

Listings can be modified at any time. You can add or update the details of your property, upload photos, or renew you listing. Any changes will be instantly displayed on the web. You can even preview your listing right from the edit page.

*Note on photo uploads: Images should be no larger than 500kb. Recommended deminsions for images is 450 width x 300 height. The administrator will corret any images found to not meet the recommended size.

Booking Agent Manager

The Booking Agent Manager is a dynamic feature that allows agents to setup your rental for online bookings. When enabled this feature will display a reservation calendar on the property detail page.

Features include:

• Configure Paypal® and deposit required for online reservations
• Create seasons, seasonal daily rates, and check in/out times
• Black out dates to make unavailable for web reservations
• View, confirm or delete any reservations created online
• Enter payment information for any reservations created online

Note: It very important that all information is completely entered in the booking module. Errors will occur if seasons, rates, or check out times, are not completely entered. Agents/owners should avoid over lapping season start and end dates.

Email Leads

Email Leads shows members how many times their profile has been viewed and the number of hits their individual listing has received. In addition, all rental leads received from DirectHomeRentals.com are stored in a database for future use.