Buying a Holiday Home to let

herbiecat_2

We are thinking of buying a holiday home that we can let when we can and use it when it is not rented. We are just unsure where the best place to buy would be for rentals returns. Obviously we would like to have it rented for as many weeks per year as we can and with the best rental possible. There are just so many places and we are not sure where to look.

Also it would be good to have a company who could manage it for you, eg. advertising and doing the weekly cleaning/changing for you.
We live on the Surrey/Hampshire border and it would be nice if we could find something within a 4 hour drive radius maximum.
Any help and/or website suggestions would be greately appreciated as we haven't done this before.

Thank you!!!!!

Jelliebeen

Hi,

I can't advise you on where to buy I'm afraid, but my parents do quite well letting their property in the Cotswolds through holidaylettings.co.uk. This company doesn't manage changeovers/cleaning etc, just advertising. However, they went live last summer and have more than got their money back.

Check out laymyhat.com too - this is a forum for holiday home owners by holiday home owners and gives you some pretty sound advice from those who know.

Hope this has been of some help

JB

zone

Any of the popular coastal destinations would be good. Have you visited anywhere you like?

PasturesNew

If you have to find somebody local to do the changeovers, bear in mind that you're competing with all the others in the area. e.g. in a holiday area in Cornwall you might find you're having to pay £20/hour silly money to attract somebody to do it because your needs might be just for 2 hours/Saturday, whereas the local caravan park employs lots of them to do a couple of dozen vans each and pay them £10/hour for 6 hours' work where they have onsite facilities to dump the washing off etc, so it's an easier job than a more responsible one that requires more work/thinking. Also, a local caravan park can guarantee them the work every changeover day. You can't.

You need to pay enough to attract and retain a reliable, trustworthy and good person to the job.

Errata

Stilwells advertise owner managed holiday lets but you'd have to arrange the cleaning/changeover. Apart from the difficulty in paying someone to do the cleaning etc there's a potential problem with finding and paying someone to sort out things that break down/emergency repairs.

SouthCoast

Where I live it is a very competitive market.

I have just booked a spring break oop north for the same price as a year ago.