Holiday Home

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!!!!!

Austin_Allegro

It's not something I'd want to do personally - friends that have had holiday homes have said its more hassle than its worth. That said, the British holiday is supposed to be having a revival due to foreign travel becoming more expensive.

If I did do it, I'd choose somewhere that would have visitors all year round, so it wouldn't be in a seaside town (that would not get many visitors off season) but somewhere like a historic town that people might want to stay in for winter breaks as well.

I think you need to decide what your main priority is. Is it

a. to make money
b. to have somewhere to go on holiday
c. both of the above

It's unlikely you'll be able to do both in the current economic climate - personally I'd prefer to save the money (and hassle) and stay in a nice B&B in a different place whenever I fancied a break.

tanith

I agree with AA it all depends on what you want out of it.... the problem is usually these lets are busy during school holiday time and the rest of the time they are empty , so you lose the weeks with the best weather. But maybe thats not a problem for you especially if you don't have to take into account school holidays... I too think renting out your holiday home is more trouble than its worth because people tend to have no respect for the places unless you only rent to family and then your beautiful holiday home soon becomes shabby and worn..

Cannon_Fodder

You'd need to understand the full costs involved, which will vary by site unfortunately.

I was gobsmacked to hear that my parent's static caravan costs £4,000 a year in ground rent...that's a damned good holiday on its own, or a big chunk of the rental income disappearing...

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070411144742AAW84Ys has other's views...

Pennywise

Having a small child, we've used UK holidays homes 2 or 3 times a year for the past 5 years, so I can tell you what we look for.

1. Within 45 minutes (driving time) of attractions, such as a city, seaside, Legoland, Diggerland, theme park, etc. Preferably a "triangulation" so that you're close to a city and a theme park and seaside. Try to be at the centre of a triangle - it is better to be 30 minutes from 3 "attractions" than 5 minutes from 1 and an hour from the other 2.

2. Centrally situated close to decent road network - i.e. 5 minutes or so from a motorway junction - not 20 minutes down a single track farm lane. If you can find someone close to the road network AND close to a main line train station, all the better, but roads are the priority. Several times, I've driven to a nearby station and then got the train into a city - better that way than being close to a station and having to drive miles to the motorway junction!

3. Guaranteed pet free and smoke free homes - we will always ignore places that welcome pets and smokers. I'd say most holiday homes accept pets - that's fair enough for the owners and prospective renters, but it is a lot harder to find pet free and the owners we've spoken to have said that a lot of their lets have been to people who wanted a pet free home and see the "pet free" as being a unique selling point. One farm had two cottages to let, one allowed pets, the other didn't - the owner said she had the best of both worlds!

4. Clean, tidy, well-equipped accomodation. We've stayed in old farm cottages and town centre new build "town houses" - doesn't matter to us, but what matters is that they are well cared for and looked after. Please don't just throw your old "past it" furniture, bedding and furnishings into it.

5. Plenty of tourist information leaflets, games & books to read, TV and video recorder in the lounge, etc. - plenty of things to do - some people will want to stay in at nights, especially with children.

6. Offer flexible lets - don't be strict with Sat-Sat 7 day lets, offer 3 and 4 day lets and also 1 or 2 nights - it's better to get 2 nights sold in a week than none at all. Don't ignore the potential for longer term stays - there are people who need temporary accommodation when moving house, foreigners working in the UK temporarily, people who have to leave their home due to flooding or rebuilding/extensions, etc.

7. Work on getting repeat custom. One common theme is that people go back time and time again to a good holiday home - they also tell their friends and family. Looking at the visitor books in some, there are people who return yearly, and some who return even more often than that!

8. Buy a house with flexible accommodation. The more bedrooms and bathrooms the better. There are a lot of one bedroom properties or 2 bedroom that are only suitable for 2/3 people. These immediately exclude families with 3 children, or families who are taking parents with them. 3 double bedrooms as a minimum and 2 bathrooms as a minimum. Good space for living and dining and a decently equipped kitchen also essential. Nice garden is a good selling point, preferably with patio furniture etc.

We've stayed in some cracking homes close to Edinburgh, Newcastle, Windsor and Leicester - plenty for children to do within 45 minutes drive! Our worst was a farm cottage in Snowdonia (a good 45 minutes of single track drive to get to a main road!). Second worst was a tatty ex council house near Edinburgh which they had the nerve to call a "cottage" even though it was in the middle of a run down estate! Our all time best (which we went back to) was a new build town house in York City Centre.

I find them by trawling through the internet, searching for the areas I'm interested in. I've only used agents twice and been disappointed both times by the standards as they clearly don't have the same interest in keeping the houses clean and maintained as owner-managers. It takes a long time to search and find the right places, but perseverence pays off and we usually find something nice. With privately run holiday homes, the owners tend to live close by, i.e. next door, or on the same street or in the next village - we've found these to be far better quality.

Agents cost a lot - you could be looking at them taking 30% of your takings to market and clean it, but on the positive side you're involvement is minimal. If it were me, I'd do it myself, get a good website, close to home (preferably within sight or daily drive past at least). In actual fact, if my OH would let me, I have already identified a suitable property, being a barn conversion close to where I work - within 45 mins of Blackpool one way and The Lake District the other way, just a few miles from the motorway, an hour away from Manchester - I'd buy it tomorrow but my OH doesn't want the hassle of looking after it!

Conrad

As an investment per se it is highly unlikely to generate a worthwhile return once you factor in the costs over the life of ownership even taking into account the money you save as a result of not having to spend on accomodation yourselves.
Capital growth is likely over the life but the rental returns after costs will almost certainly be considerably poorer than a standard residential buy to let which after all is let all year and has far far fewer costs, for example no cleaning costs except between tenants and even then there are often no costs.

PasturesNew

Cannon_Fodder wrote: »

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070411144742AAW84Ys has other's views...

Loved the 2nd reply: "beware of those selling u a caravan they are very crafty b u g g e r s who would sell their grandma if they knew they could get commision out of it"

LadyIndecisive

Really good post by pennywise, hope OP says thanks for his/her tips.

Pennywise

Conrad wrote: »

As an investment per se it is highly unlikely to generate a worthwhile return once you factor in the costs over the life of ownership even taking into account the money you save as a result of not having to spend on accomodation yourselves.
Capital growth is likely over the life but the rental returns after costs will almost certainly be considerably poorer than a standard residential buy to let which after all is let all year and has far far fewer costs, for example no cleaning costs except between tenants and even then there are often no costs.

With the utmost respect I'd disagree. Holiday homes rent for an average £500 per week - that's around £250 per week low season and upto £1000 per week high season. If you rent it for just half the year at £500 per week, that's £13,000 income, less say £3k or £4k for overheads gives say £9k per year profit. A house would rent for say £750 per month, giving £9k per year profit. So as long as you can rent your house for more than half the year, you'll be making more. In actual fact, keeping it fully let in holidays and peak times at £1000 per week will make you more money, even if you don't let it at all off peak. I don't think that people realise just how much you can rent out a good holiday let for. As rule of thumb, you're looking at earning the same per week as you can per month for a normal residential let.

I'd also stick my neck out and say that maintenace and replacements will be less as you don't have people living in it full time. Most people use a holiday home as a base, just like a hotel, and just cook the occasional meal and basically sleep in it. I'd say that your appliances etc will last a lot longer than permanent tenants.

I'd recommend the OP to go for it. I certainly would. In fact, we have just inherited a house that we are doing up and we are seriously considering it for the holiday market (although I think my OH will veto it again!).

dazco

I reckon it's a good idea. Go for it.

I rent cottages and holiday apartments rather than use hotels.

I would advise you use one of the on-line companies otherwise a google search will put your l'il house on page 2462.

Another thing you could consider. Market it as a smoking property, there are many of us left and nearly all rentals stipulate no smoking.

Good luck

iolanthe07

Market it as a smoking property

DON'T market it as a smoking rental! We owned a house we let out for holidays in the 90's and it was more trouble than it was worth. Smokers were the worst! They would burn holes in the carpet/upholstery and always seemed to leave more mess than non-smokers (though I accept that is my subjective opinion), and the stink after they left wasn't fair to the non-smoking majority. We packed it in - it is very depressing to enter the property on a Saturday morning and have to spend two hours trying to clean the oven for the next visitors, and though we were in a very popular part of East Devon, we still had loads of void weeks. Our mistake was not putting it with a decent agent - if you do go ahead put it with an agent you can trust.