Anybody renting out their flat for olympics?

jee

Just curious if anybody is doing this. I have a flat in the area and have been thinking about it.

richardw

What does your insurer say about this?

kmmr

I have actually looked into this is a bit of detail, as we have a place also available. I had 2 agents come over, but they were more using the opportunity to push their normal service for long and short lets.

They said our place was perfect, but they had a huge oversupply of properties and virtually zero demand at the moment. This may change as athletes know with more certainty that they will be coming and so will have family etc who want to stay, but in general the demand has been pretty low now.

We have decided it's not worth it. The cost of ensuring your home is ready, and the risk was too high for us. I know people in my area who have regular holiday flats are pretty booked up (as usual for that time period) but no crazy inflated rents above normal summer rates.

It's a hard market to judge IMHO. Do you want to rent out as a cheap place with 10 peope sharing? Or really high end? If it's high end, then you need to spend a lot to make it perfect, including advertising in the right places. If it's low end, how do you find people - and how do you minimise the damage to your home...

Anyway, good luck! I decided it wasn't for me, but there could still be money to be made.

Werdnal

I think you have missed the boat. I'm fairly sure people looking to run an Olympic let have to register with the council.

That is without getting permission from your insurer, mortgage lender, freeholder etc.

Some interesting info here:
http://www.adamslaw.co.uk/blog/?p=382

GAH

And this was an excellent article that I read a few months back

http://www.bushells.com/newsarticles.php?id=24430

jee

I actually have an empty flat walking distance to the olympics park- my tennants have moved out and I'm in the process of getting new ones in.
One of my concerns is that they could sublet the flat themselves and another is that if they leave in 6 months I'll be competing with lots of properties back on the market which were being rented out to tourists.

I'm going through my options.
Thanks for all the helpful info.

cattie

At the begining of this year, I was given the opportunity to take in Olympic tourist families through a Christian organisation, as I'm very close to where some portions of the games will take place in Greenwich, but decided I just didn't want the hassle of having to cope with strangers, no matter how nice & no matter how high a price they were willing to pay. If people really are desperate for money, then it would be a good way of capitalising on empty rooms.