I, too am frustrated by the exhorbitant fees charged to owners by the front desk when renting or units, but the fact is that500 per night for a week is 3500, an even 60 per cent of that is far greater than we usually rent for if we do it ourselves. I do think that the problem is we give our unit away with absolutely NO minimum guarantee, whereas even when we get less from our own web site by doing it ourselves, we at least have the assurance of either knowing it has not rented, and will not, so we can give it away if we want, or have a guaranteed income from the unit.

In the last decade, I have rented my unit a couple of times using the owner's website. I have week 14 and have easily rented it for $3200. To get this from renting through the resort, they would have to rent my unit for $703 per night, a very unlikely prospect. So utilizing the owner's site is both a better financial result, but, as you state, gives you the full knowledge of whether or not you will be able to rent it at all. Now with the front office discounting units during prime season, it makes the value of this web site even more evident. The rental market can still find better deals here and the discrepancy between the resort's return and doing it yourself is even greater.
I don't know what week(s) you have Larry and I have seen units listed for rent at what appears to be little more than our annual fees, ie. summer and autumn weeks. In that instance, maybe the resort can get more money for you, but I would still imagine that your return would be more favorable by listing on the owner's site.

I agree with you. I think the owner's website is the only way we have of freely communicating with both other owners and the public at large without the control of the resort operators. In addition, the free flow of information, and the certainty of rental or non-rental is quite valuable to me. It is true that the weeks listed on the owner's web site for summer are quite cheap, especially this year, and I wonder if we are really being market wise, when the resort is renting units for so much more. Perhaps we need to advertise the owner's web site to a larger audience on the web, or in local papers where there seems to be a greater than average interest in Sanibel in general.

Larry