Holiday Park Investment Or Not. What To Do With £70,000

dunstonh

I don’t want to gamble on stocks and shares

A very strange thing to say as holiday park lets are actually a higher risk and more of a gamble.

1 - depreciating asset - these things have a life before they need replacing (if wooden or mobile) or significant refurb (if chalets).
2 - heavy ongoing maintenance (holidaymakers do not look after other peoples contents or furnishings in the same way you would)
3 - everything is reliant on the park still operating every year. Park closes and you are a stuck with a unit worth nothing and no income.

There are two reasons why a park looks to sell units.
1 - it has a financial need to raise capital.
2 - They think they can do better with the money elsewhere.

Just think about it for a second. People do not sell profitable income generating assets unless they have a need for the money.

There is a hotel in the south-west that has nearly 50 chalets and over 20 lodges. It used to be a highly popular and successful site. Especially with the travelling golfers and generally middle/upper market holidaymakers. High-quality restaurant, busy bar. Always bustling. Now it is a ghost town. Restuarant is virtually non-existent and hardly anyone goes there. It started selling chalets just after its peak in popularity. They started getting dated and expensive to maintain. The money raised was used to build over 20 wooden lodges. Now it owns just 4 of those chalets and only 1 of the lodges. The rest sold to people like the OP. The hotel is only turning over just over £200k a year (peanuts for the size of the site) and is now up for sale. The property particulars state it could be turned back into a private dwelling. There are some chalets up for sale at the moment and they are less than what they were bought for.

So, which is the gamble? Conventional investments that can be bought and sold the same day or a chalet/lodge/mobile home which is illiquid on a site that you have no control over.

BananaRepublic

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Sounds like the car park / storage spaces schemes.
Its just a con to make you feel more secure in owning something - plot of land, car park space etc. Even if this was a decent investment you are totaly dependent on someone else for acess roads, utilities, security, etc. You would be better off with shares in the company operating the park - not that I am suggesting that. But they get someone else to put up all the capital buying the plots, then have total control over them because their plots are useless without the goodwill of the holiday park operator.

That is of course how some of these scams work. There may be a clause requiring maintenance by the park owner, at exorbitant rates, or a sky high management fee for then surroundings etc. And if it’s in the contract, you are fubared.

Plenty of people on these boards have got relatively wealthy by investing in equities.

resk

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Sounds like the car park / storage spaces schemes.
Its just a con to make you feel more secure in owning something - plot of land, car park space etc.

Indeed. I always read through these threads with fascination, although it is a bit depressing when I see people posting who have "invested" in these scams. I don't know how the people running these rip offs, which seem to be almost epidemic, can live with themselves. I suppose it's human nature to rationalise and self-justify your own behaviour, including how you earn a living.

jimjames

resk wrote: »

Indeed. I always read through these threads with fascination, although it is a bit depressing when I see people posting who have "invested" in these scams. I don't know how the people running these rip offs, which seem to be almost epidemic, can live with themselves. I suppose it's human nature to rationalise and self-justify your own behaviour, including how you earn a living.

I agree it's depressing reading. The posts here from people who've lost tens of thousands of pension investment in storage pods is shocking

http://damn-lies-and-statistics.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/store-first-storage-pods-scam-complaints.html

ValiantSon

It's all been said above, so I'll just add my vote for, "Avoid like the plague".

C_Mababejive

Do some research on Rightmove and similar. You will find plenty of caravans/"bungalows"/"chalets"/"lodges" that people are trying to get rid of ,often on offer for years, prices cut year on year and why? Because they are liabilities and people just want to cut and run. Dont be one of them.

BananaRepublic

resk wrote: »

Indeed. I always read through these threads with fascination, although it is a bit depressing when I see people posting who have "invested" in these scams. I don't know how the people running these rip offs, which seem to be almost epidemic, can live with themselves. I suppose it's human nature to rationalise and self-justify your own behaviour, including how you earn a living.

I agree. However, these schemes are legal, and the perpetrators know the victims enter into a contract voluntarily. They probably see it as a legitimate business deal, which in a sense it is. However, there is more to morality than legality, such as providing good service and a benefit to the community, and dealing with customers in an honest an open manner, none of which apply here. I also don’t know how they live with themselves.

AnotherJoe

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”


― Upton Sinclair

dealer_wins

jimjames wrote: »

I agree it's depressing reading. The posts here from people who've lost tens of thousands of pension investment in storage pods is shocking

http://damn-lies-and-statistics.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/store-first-storage-pods-scam-complaints.html

Heartbreaking reading those tales of people losing £1000s

Gadfium

dealer_wins wrote: »

Heartbreaking reading those tales of people losing £1000s

A foole & his money,
be soone at debate:
which after with sorrow,
repents him to late.