You’ve bought a holiday let property, kitted it out and now it’s ready for the first guests. The next step is to decide whether it’s best to look after everything yourself, or to hand over the management tasks to a rental agency? Your final choice will depend on many factors and personal circumstances. To help you decide, we’ve listed the …
Owning a holiday rental is emotional – it’s your home after all. Somewhere you may have painstakingly renovated from a ruin, spend many hours cleaning/preparing for guests and where you intend to retire. Unfortunately some guests don’t abide to a ‘treat it as you would your own’ approach when staying in holiday homes. If you spend time reading holiday home …
If you’ve set up a well-equipped holiday let in a good location with the right marketing behind it, your booking requests are probably flowing in. But should you accept guests at face value or do you screen them first? If you don’t, you are not alone. Two fifths of holiday home owners ‘don’t bother’ checking guest credentials despite over half …
If you rent out your holiday property for any length of time it’s somewhat inevitable that you will receive a guest complaint somewhere along the road. Regardless of the care you take over your property and quality of the service you give, you just cannot please all people all of the time. In today’s litigious society, it’s a sad fact …
Hoteliers often report on items travellers take from hotel rooms, with toiletries and tea/coffee being the top items. However, this behaviour isn’t exclusive to hotels. Holiday home guests may not always be behaving within the rules of the law when staying in a holiday rental. When questionned, guests admit to ‘borrowing’ items from a holiday home they’ve stayed at in …
Having an open fire in your holiday home can be one of its biggest selling points during the winter season, but how do you balance the romance with the risks? The Romance Photos of a big, roaring open fire are perhaps one of the most romantic images you will see on holiday cottage rental websites, and can be a massive …
Bookings are going well, the holiday letting season is in full swing and everything seems to be perfect. The next thing you know something happens at your holiday let, the guests are not happy and you are running around to make it right. Sound familiar? By all accounts it’s been a tough year for holiday lets. We have experienced a …
Quite unlike using a faceless hotel reservations system, booking a cottage directly with its owner can offer a huge amount of flexibility to get your holiday just right. Need an extra bed in your room for a child who won´t sleep alone in strange places? No problem. Want to bring the family pooch along? Sure you can. Prefer a late …
If you spend time on holiday rental owner communities you will often see posts like these from owners who are panicking; -Enquiries have completely dried up! -Help! bookings down -Where have all the bookings gone? Don’t panic! I know it’s difficult not to, but try not to panic. If this is your first year letting your holiday home it’s hard …
Going on holiday and experiencing travel from a holidaymakers perspective allows you to re-assess how you run your holiday let and get tips on how you can improve it. Having recently returned from a family holiday at Disney with Virgin Holidays, I picked up some tips on how they operate their travel business and how theses can be applied to …
Hardly a month goes by without news of a new holiday rental website being launched, or reports of increasing numbers of properties being listed with the big portals. It seems that more and more owners are realising the benefits of earning a second income from their holiday homes, or even creating a main source of business. Not only this, but …
As a holiday let landlord you are responsible for the upkeep of your holiday property and to ensure that holidaymakers staying in your rental don’t face any problems. The winter months present a series of significant risks to holiday rental properties, some of which can prove to be costly to resolve and inconvenience guests. Therefore, it’s vital to take steps …
If you’re like most holidaymakers today, you probably look for discounts and/or last minute deals when booking your holiday. Cost is an increasingly important factor for travellers looking for holidays online, backed up with statistics that the search term “cheap holidays” is one of the most used. It is certainly no surprise that many people think they can haggle on …
The upcoming Queen’s Diamond Jubilee holidays could result in a rise in certain insurance claims at your holiday let. Unsurprisingly, claims data reveals that there is an increase in fire claims and accidental damage during public holidays. Diamond Jubilee parties will be held throughout the UK, especially at holiday rentals where families are holidaying together, or where friends meet up. …
If you are lucky enough to own your own holiday let, there have been some important updates by HMRC on the furnished holiday lettings tax rules that you should be aware of. The purpose of this page is to provide a useful resource of all the latest news and rules relating to holiday let taxation. Furnished holiday lettings tax resources …
No doubt you have received an enquiry for your holiday cottage which also requested the exact address of the rental property. Should you give it out? Is it a potential burglar who has seen photos of your holiday property contents and your availability calendar – so they know exactly when your holiday property is empty. What if you don’t disclose …
The January peak holiday rental and cottage holiday booking season is under way and many owners are seeing an increase in ‘what is your very best price for’, ‘would you take £X amount for’ and ‘we only have a budget of £x’ enquiries – sound familiar? I’m sure many owners have their own ideas on how they would like to …
Apart from the fire risks – which could mean making a claim on your holiday let home insurance policy – allowing smoking in your holiday home could lose you repeat business. After all, who wants to stay in a property that smells like an old ashtray – especially when it’s advertised as non-smoking? You may find, however, that despite putting …
There is no doubt about it…damage is one of the most feared aspects that owners face when letting a holiday home. After all, you are letting a ‘virtual stranger’ stay in what is likely to be one of your most valuable (financially and emotional) assets. As one renter recently discovered when their home was trashed by a ‘guest’ there is …
If you let your holiday home and take care of the marketing yourself, then no doubt you have capitalised on the demand from holidaymakers who book their holidays direct with owners via holiday rental websites. The listing fee business model The process is simple, as a property owner you pay a annual listing fee and deal with booking enquiries direct. …
Getting booked up is the ultimate goal for holiday rental and cottage owners. Encouraging guests to return is one such way to achieve this goal efficiently. Studies also show that it’s less expensive to attract repeat customers than new ones – this makes sense considering the expense of marketing (and time) to attract new customers. The good news is that …
Do you stay in holiday rentals other than your own holiday home? – you should. Experiencing renting from a holidaymakers perspective allows you to re-assess how you run your holiday let and how you could improve it. Following a recent stay in a holiday rental, here are my thoughts on what made a difference and what could have been improved. …
Have you noticed the recent change in Google local search results? Google recently launch ‘Place Search’ which shows local businesses more predominantly if Google predicts you’re looking for local information. For example, searching for ‘cottage in ambleside’ will show holiday letting agencies and holiday cottages located in Ambleside that have registered with Google Places. There is a good overview here. …
When renting your holiday home, using a mixture of paid holiday rental portals such as holidayrentals, ownersdirect and holidaylettings can help you get bookings and exposure. However, as sites become saturated as more holiday home owners take advantage of the self catering holiday trend, to earn rental income – your advert could become lost in the crowd. Having your own …
Whether you are a holiday letting expert or a new to the market, the recession and a weak pound have resulted in a recent decline in family holidays abroad. Combined with increasing competition from owners renting in order to offset mortgage and maintenance costs – getting those bookings has never been so important. However, it’s not easy to fill availability …
The Government has just published a consultation paper on proposals to change the tax rules for furnished holiday lets so they meet EU legal requirements in a fiscally responsible way. The proposed changes to the special tax rules for furnished holiday lettings include; increasing the number of days for which a property must be available to let from 140 to …
July and August are always peak periods for holiday bookings as thousands book last minute summer getaways. Get Safe Online, a government-backed campaign developed in collaboration with ABTA and The Travel Association are warning holidaymakers about following some simple online fraud prevention measures as they search for holiday bargains. According to their research, one in three internet users fail to …
Tailored for a holiday let or granny annex Many of the most desirable country houses have appealing features – views, privacy, architecture and the setting. Some also have the facility to house guests somewhere outside of the main home in a self contained annexe or granny annex in the grounds. Converting an outbuilding into a self contained annexe can also …
It appears that flights will continue to be disrupted throughout the summer due to the ash cloud – with flight delays and cancellations inevitable. This means that holiday let owners will need to keep track of guests flights in order to re-schedule dates, key collection details or further assist departing guests. Having recently assisted a family member who was stranded …
There were lots of holiday let owners who feared the worst last week when there was a very real possibility that holiday rental guests would cancel their holidays for the unseeable future, due to the volcano in Iceland. If one thing can be learnt from the travel chaos, it’s that holiday rental owners need to protect their rental income from …
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