Renting my holiday home

nanatopsy · 23 February 2009 at 8:48PM

With so many MSE'ers having property abroad, has anyone ever considered house swapping?? I myself am in Spain and like to return to the UK occasionally but find accommodation so expensive. Also, despite what some might think a change of scenery for a holiday would be nice!!!:rotfl:

sally_80 · 1 February 2010 at 5:00PM

I've found Pure Holiday Homes to be pretty good - cheap fees and if you catch them at the right time you might even get a free subscription, they were offering them a few weeks back so it's worth keeping your eye on. They've also got a really good "swap" function on the site which me and my husband used (not quite what it sounds like, unfortunately!), where we rented a ski chalet in Austria in return for renting someone else ours...worked really well!

teacherspet_2 · 26 April 2010 at 6:19PM

This may be a bit late, but if I could add my two penneth. I have some friends who have a holiday home in Spain, and they let me rent it for a good price. They have told me some horror stories of holiday tenants who have not looked after the place properly. I think they are happy to rent to me cheaply, rather than getting a lot more from the internet. Anyway, they have their property on holidaylettings.co.uk, and rentals365.com.

From what I can gather, it's nice to have a holiday home, but much more hassle if you have to rent it out.

Take care.

heretolearn_2 · 24 September 2010 at 1:26PM

Make sure your insurance includes cover if you rent out.

My brother rented out his holiday house to a work colleague and they burned the whole kitchen down. It was covered ok, but if you just have normal insurance it won't be...

nhassett2907 · 7 February 2011 at 1:39AM

I know this is late, but I have been acting as an agent to help rent out places in Kent, Dorset and Spain. I've found the best way is to have your own website, think about who your target market is and advertise accordingly. Each owner I deal with pays £6 per month for the website, and I receive 10% of the total bookings.

So far, we are fully booked until the 1st September for both the house in Kent and the one in Dorset. The Spanish property is a new venture, which we took on last week but we have already had two confirmed bookings and one serious enquiry. It shows that you don't need to pay out a massive amount of money, just use a lot of common sense and you will be fine.

Here is another pointer regarding the pricing of rent. There are 12 weeks in the summer, which is when you can expect a full house. There are also 12 months in a year. Workout the cost of the house per month (all bills, council tax, insurance etc) and that is then your weekly price. That way, once you have filled up the 12 summer weeks, the house is paid off for the entire year, and any other bookings are pure profit. If the weekly rent price looks a bit much, consider what you could add to their holiday for more value. Try to spend as little money on this as possible. Sometimes first class customer service is enough. If it still looks too much, have a look around at cheaper providers, to try to get the cost of your bills down.

If anyone would like any help regarding holiday rentals, please feel free to send me a message. And don't forget, we are always looking for more properties to manage, in the UK or abroad. Our results speak for themselves.