Caravan holiday home?

greenmoneysaver_2

We are considerign buying a caravan at an established park. We would use it for hols and rent it out at other times.

Does anyone have any ideas on site fees? The deals offered are from £10k plus incl 1st year site fees, making me think they are quite steep.

I am aware that caravans have a limited shelf life - if buying second hand how old is too old?

dentonemma

Our site fees were £2800 for this year and we were the cheapest part of the park. Ask the park how much their site fees are.

greenmoneysaver_2

Thank you - I had thought abou £300 pm.

What facilities do you get for your fees?

PasturesNew

It can be difficult to find out the fees, sometimes a d4mned hard googling will yield a result. On the whole, most are £1,000-£3,000.

A holiday caravan will have a specific length lease - many are 10-12 years. You'd need to find out exactly how long the lease is, when it started, exactly when it ends. At the end of the lease you can consider that [a] the caravan is worthless you will have to pay to have it removed from the site. At this point you might be able to get £1-2k max for it with a 'buyer removes' clause, if you're lucky.

If you sell it, you will have to pay the whole year's fees up front - if you don't then you will find buyers less interested in buying yours as everybody else chucks in/pays the new year's fees.

When you sell it, you have to give the site owner 15% of the sales price.

So, some maths might be:

£10,000 buy it, with 2011 fees included
£500 insurance, gas etc for 2011
£2,500 2012 fees
£500 insurance, gas etc for 2012
£2,500 2013 fees
£500 insurance, gas etc for 2013

Fed up with it now so want to sell it for £8,000
£2,500 2014 fees
£1,200 to site owner.

Total cost of ownership for 2011, 2012, 2013 (3 seasons) would be:
£2,000 'loss of value'
£7,500 site fees
£1,200 owner sales commission
£1,500 insurance etc
=====
£12,200
=====

And if you use an estate agent to sell it, you can also write off another £1500-2000 in their fees (inc VAT).

So think long and hard about whether you really want one - and how feasible renting it out to cover these fees might be because there would be additional costs to rent it out. e.g. safety checks, booking agency fees, cleaning fees, etc.

PasturesNew

If you can name one specific site we could try to dig out the exact costs for you ... at the moment it's a bit like guessing the weight of the pie I'm holding here in my hand... how heavy do you think it is?

Werdnal

You may also find some sites have a policy of getting rid of units after a certain age, so the value depreciates quickly. They like to keep the sites in a presentable condition and older less attrative statics let the general appearance of the site down, so they limit the lease. You can usually renew on the same plot, but would have to buy a new unit to replace the old one at your expense. We looked into a log cabin style chalet, but were put off for this reason

Remember too, any income would need to be declared to the jolly old tax man and you would have to arrange service for change-overs if not included in the site fees.

zaksmum

Ours is just over 2K a year, then £190 rates and about the same amount for insurance.

For the fees, we just get proximity to the sea, and a private slipway for anyone with a boat.

Lease wise, we got 10 years but we've actually had 14 years. Now have to either upgrade the caravan or take the old one off site.

If you buy second hand on our site, you wouldn't want to buy a van much more than about 5 years old.

vacheron

We have a caravan just north of the Scottish border on an immaculate site and pay fees of £1440/year. Ours is for personal use only so we don't rent it out at present.

I agree with the earlier comments regarding the maximum age of the caravans as this can make huge differences to the hidden yearly costs if you are thinking of buying an older model. Try and get something in writing if they make any favorable statements in this regard.

Running_Horse

I have seen adverts in Kent where you get the van free if you pay site fees. I suspect it is a very old van on an unpopular site. This falls into the category of probably too much hassle for the benefit. My in-laws bought one in the hope everyone would come down to visit them, and nobody did. Someone at work was forever going down at weekends to clean up for the next users.

greenmoneysaver_2

Thanks everyone - we are looking at Alberta or Seaview parks near Whitstable in Kent.

I think the figures wont stack up, as these parks have loads of facilities and so presume the fees will be the top end of the budget.

We were looking at it as a cheaper alternative to buying a second home in Whitstable, but with a house you still have that after 10 yrs! Its just the bigger deposit! Otherwise if no-one lets it the monthly outgoings on a small flat are about the same as the caravan!

Werdnal

greenmoneysaver wrote: »

Thanks everyone - we are looking at Alberta or Seaview parks near Whitstable in Kent.

I think the figures wont stack up, as these parks have loads of facilities and so presume the fees will be the top end of the budget.

We were looking at it as a cheaper alternative to buying a second home in Whitstable, but with a house you still have that after 10 yrs! Its just the bigger deposit! Otherwise if no-one lets it the monthly outgoings on a small flat are about the same as the caravan!

If you opt for a small flat to let for holidays, check out to rules and regs as I'm fairly sure they differ from residential lets - particularly on things like health and safety (provision of fire extinguishers etc). Insurance varies too, and remember some flats are leasehold and preclude letting on a holiday basis. At least if you went for a caravan on a site it would already be set up in compliance for letting.