Have you ever been tempted to take advantage of the vacation-rental clearance—booking a beach home or mountain condo mere weeks before check-in? [+] Enlarge photo Luckily, a Web site launching today will help make it easier for you to book an affordable vacation rental at the last minute: PackLate.com . The site has a simple motto: “The closer to check-in, the bigger the discount.” A condo in Utah that ordinarily rents for $150 a night on a vacation rental booking site like HomeAway will be offered on PackLate for about $100 a night two weeks in advance, and then, say, $75 a night a week in advance. The site is free to use, but you have to provide your e-mail address or Facebook account access in order to sign up to see deals. This news is part of a larger trend than the mere launch of a small website. PackLate’s arrival means that—at last!—the vacation rental industry is becoming more technologically savvy and its yield-management systems will be hard at work. A sale can now be launched and then ended within hours. For example, many PackLate deals are available for only a three-day, 24-hour, or even 10-minute periods. That means discounts will be lower than ever before, but only sophisticated travelers will benefit the most. Rates drop by at least 10 percent for bookings made within two or three weeks of arrival. Brokers become desperate to put some heads in their beds, rather than leaving their places empty. PackLate allows owners to offer even discounts of 45 percent off when I looked today, even for Presidents’ Week rentals that are normally sold out at peak prices by now. I’ve got two criticisms with PackLate as it “gets out of the gate.” First, it doesn’t have a broad inventory of properties yet

Original Source New site PackLate lets you rent a place after all