Making Holiday Rentals Work

by Johnathan Hegg Freelance writer

If you, like many other people, have bought a holiday property in the United Kingdom or abroad, you may like to consider renting it out as a self-catering holiday property for the long periods when it would otherwise be vacant. The capital returns you can get from this are the obvious advantage – but having said that, there are plenty of other reasons to besides. It is better for a property to be occupied, for one thing – rooms should be aired, floors should be swept and the building itself should be warmed at least some of the time. For another thing, it makes maintaining your property a lot easier if you have regular occupants who can—and will—tell you if there is something in need of maintenance.

All of these advantages stack up to an appealing case for renting out your property to holiday makers. In much the same way, if you have a property portfolio that isn't moving quickly, you can benefit significantly by putting your properties to use instead of leaving them to sit vacant. In fact, you could find yourself making a sufficient amount from holiday rentals to justify holding onto some of your properties for a longer time than you otherwise would, and treating rentals as a standalone business.

Having outlined the case for renting out your property, you'll be glad to read, this article can also offer you some great tips and – above all – an assurance that it is not at all a difficult endeavour to embark upon. Whether you are renting a personal second property or a portfolio, there are several very manageable steps that you can take to make the process entirely manageable and to help you to get to grips with this new industry.

First and perhaps foremost is the importance – and ease – of getting your property out there. You may need to add a few 'safety' features, depending on where your property is; a quick peruse of the internet should answer that question for you. You may also wish to take out some additional insurance just to be on the safe side. These relatively small and easy to tackle tasks aside, though, the advertising of your property is a far more important step to take. It is also an ostensibly bigger one – but appearances can be deceiving! In fact, there are a number of ways to get your property out there and visible to a huge audience of potential guests. Agencies, portals and comparisons websites are a great way of doing this. Once you have taken a set of appealing photographs and written up an affectionate description of your property, they will do much of the rest for you.

To go one further again, you can think about setting up a website. People often balk at this – "I can't do a website!" is a common cry. Yet again, though, there is good news for you. Some very clever vacation rental marketing exists for this very purpose – try shopping around online for a piece of short let property management software and you will be very pleasantly surprised indeed. This is essentially software designed to make renting a property a piece of cake. From pretty much creating and managing your website for you to synchronising all your bookings, vacancies, cleaning rotas, check-ins and payments in once place, a good piece of software should be able to do most of your work for you.

And after all that is taken care of, there really isn't that much left to do. The only other question that springs to mind is, "Why not?"