Detailing the prizes and pitfalls of going the rental route, Consumer News Editor Wendy Perrin shares her field-tested tips for finding that most elusive of villa stays—an inexpensive gem on the beach—and for extracting the most value whatever your destination

It's the holy grail of villa rentals: A home smack on the beach, where your terrace is just a shell's throw from the sand and where the first thing you see when you sit up in bed in the morning is an unobstructed expanse of turquoise sea. Such a place is often extravagantly expensive, of course. Of all the features a rental villa can have, a beachfront location is the one that will shoot the price the highest. Renting a house just a one-block walk from the strand can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

If ever there was a time when the beachfront rental has entered the realm of possibility, however, that time is now. On many islands and coasts, homeowners are ready to negotiate, and the deals are flying. Last winter, I decided to seize the day and see how little I could pay for a snazzy beachfront villa in the Caribbean at the height of the season: the February Presidents' Week school holiday. I ended up scoring a state-of-the-art three-bedroom villa with a private pool on the French/Dutch island of St. Martin/Sint Maarten.

The living room and master bedroom were no more than 20 steps from the beach, and the floor-to-ceiling glass walls facing the ocean made you feel like you were outdoors even when you were in. My family and I had 5,240 square feet of space—including a private 1,500-square-foot oceanfront terrace and an architecturally unique 522-square-foot pool—as well as every comfort, from king-size canopy beds with plush pillowtop mattresses to iPod docks with poolside outdoor speakers to bathrooms with the most elaborate showerheads, jets, and nozzles I've ever seen. The nightly rate? Including housekeeping and tax, $1,062. That breaks down to $354 per bedroom per night. Even with today's great deals at beach resorts, I can't imagine getting all this at any hotel for less than $1,000 a night.

How did I find this bargain? First, I avoided tiny and exclusive islands—e.g., St. Barts or Mustique, where the demand for villas outweighs the supply and puddle-jumper flights to get there can be pricey. Instead, I chose a more trafficked island where supply exceeds demand and affordable nonstop service is available from many U.S. cities. Now, make no mistake, St. Martin/Sint Maarten is overbuilt and junky in parts—the parts that, sadly, most cruise-ship visitors never get beyond (mainly on the Dutch side). Still, it has plenty of scenic drives, hidden-gem beaches, authentic local color, and world-class cuisine... if you know where to go (mainly on the French side). I chose a spot on the Dutch-French border so we could quickly reach the delights of the French side while also having convenient access to the boating and water sports infrastructure of the Dutch side.

Another strategy for getting the best beachfront value for your dollar is to rent a villa that's not a freestanding house but rather a unit in a set of residences. Most unattached beachfront Caribbean rentals have more than three bedrooms and represent a value only if you can fill every bed. My party was small, however: I required only two bedrooms for my family of four. And when you need just two or three bedrooms on a beach, it often makes sense to rent a residence that splits the cost of the amenities with other units. We chose one of six beachfront villas (and 15 non-beachfront) that belong to the Coral Beach Club in Oyster Pond. Each shares a concierge desk, a gym, a parking garage, and a housekeeper but has its own private pool and terrace. Only when we walked outside our villa did we feel like we were part of a larger development; indoors, gazing through those glass walls at the sea, there were no other buildings in sight, so it felt like ours was the only thing on the beach.