Every home, walked before it goes live

There is a particular kind of disappointment that only happens on holiday. You arrive somewhere you have been picturing for weeks, open the door, and it is not the place in the photographs. The pool is smaller. The third bedroom is really a store room with a mattress. The wifi reaches the living room and gives up.

We built our process around avoiding that specific feeling.

Before a home appears on this site, someone from our team stays in it. Not a walkthrough with a clipboard — a night. You learn different things at 6am than you do at 2pm: whether the road noise carries, whether the hot water lasts through three showers, whether the kitchen has a pan you could actually cook in.

What we check that photographs don't show

Water pressure on the top floor. Wifi signal in the furthest bedroom, not the one next to the router. Whether the "mountain view" needs you to stand in one specific corner. How long the generator takes to kick in. Whether the staff who look after the house know the area well enough to tell you where to eat.

What happens when a home doesn't pass

We tell the owner what needs fixing and we come back. Some homes take two or three visits before they go live. Some never do — and those are the ones you never see here, which is rather the point.

It is slower than listing everything and letting reviews sort it out. We think the trade is worth it: by the time you are choosing between three homes on this site, the choice is between three good options, not a gamble.