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We started with four houses in Corsica.
Cloubay is a small team of eleven people in Lisbon, London and Mexico City. We find houses, we visit them, and we look after the people who book them. That is the whole business.
Our story
Booking a house should not feel like buying a flight.
In 2019 two of us spent a summer trying to rent a house in Corsica for eight people. Every listing looked the same, every price changed depending on the day we looked, and nobody could tell us whether the bedrooms were on one floor or three. We ended up emailing a local agency who answered in one paragraph and got it exactly right.
Cloubay is that agency, scaled carefully. We now list 230 homes in 18 countries and we still answer in paragraphs. We take a flat commission from the owner, never from the guest, so the price you see is the price the host set — no dynamic pricing, no bidding, no service fee that appears on the last screen.
We are not trying to be the biggest. We are trying to be the site you check first.
Selection standards
How a house gets on the site
About one in ten makes it. The rest are usually fine — they are just not worth flying for.
Someone tells us about a house
Usually a guest, sometimes an architect, occasionally the owner. We look at roughly forty a month.
We go and stay in it
One night minimum, at our own cost, unannounced where we can. We measure rooms, test the water pressure and photograph what is actually there.
We write it up honestly
Including the steep drive, the neighbour's dog and the bathroom that is smaller than it looks. If we cannot recommend it without a caveat we will not list it.
230 homes
Every one visited in person by a member of our team. No exceptions, no remote sign-offs.
Flat 12% commission
Paid by the owner, disclosed to the guest. We do not mark up rates or take a cut of the cleaning fee.
11 people
Small enough that the person who answers your email has probably slept in the house you are asking about.
1% for repair
One percent of revenue goes to coastal and woodland restoration in the regions we list in.
Press
“The rare rental site that reads like it was written by someone who has actually been there.”Monocle — The Travel Issue
Work with us
Own somewhere unusual?
We are always looking, particularly in Japan, Morocco, Norway and the Scottish islands.