Holiday cottage letting & promotion

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Tricky one. Go for an agent that doesn't have many properties, get loads of bookings,next year they take on more properties....then you get less bookings....
EVERYONE will tell you to get your own website, and save the 25% commission.
Folks are only interested in taking their own pets , Wi Fi, and a hot tub, in that order. You can rent out a skip in the middle of a scrapyard these days, as long as it takes pets, has Wi Fi........
£12k per year is the figure often quoted.....we seem to do £5 -9k.
Don't underestimate the time needed to clean it on changeover day. Imagine cleaning your own house top to bottom within 3 hours on a Saturday ( bathroom / kitchen, checking fridge / cooker / microwave, all the crockery and utensils......)
Discounting ? I hate it, although we do it sometimes. Quite enough discounting goes on with farm produce, let alone doing the fecking cottage too.
Need to be there 24/7 really to sort problems. Problems usually clash with vital farm work....
 
Tricky one. Go for an agent that doesn't have many properties, get loads of bookings,next year they take on more properties....then you get less bookings....
EVERYONE will tell you to get your own website, and save the 25% commission.
Folks are only interested in taking their own pets , Wi Fi, and a hot tub, in that order. You can rent out a skip in the middle of a scrapyard these days, as long as it takes pets, has Wi Fi........
£12k per year is the figure often quoted.....we seem to do £5 -9k.
Don't underestimate the time needed to clean it on changeover day. Imagine cleaning your own house top to bottom within 3 hours on a Saturday ( bathroom / kitchen, checking fridge / cooker / microwave, all the crockery and utensils......)
Discounting ? I hate it, although we do it sometimes. Quite enough discounting goes on with farm produce, let alone doing the fecking cottage too.
Need to be there 24/7 really to sort problems. Problems usually clash with vital farm work....

Why you dont take pets I dont know. Ive never had one problem with pets.
 

Still Farming

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South Wales UK
Phone will never stop by people and firms saying their the best since sliced bread in promoting your cottages.
Most as say charge 20- 30% plus vat if registered and run a owners rate and customer rate?
Yes you got it you get the owners rate that is a lot lower minus all the stoppages.
Tourist boards and tourism dept.of your local Councils often best and go it alone.
To start with.
 

Pond digger

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Location
East Yorkshire
Tricky one. Go for an agent that doesn't have many properties, get loads of bookings,next year they take on more properties....then you get less bookings....
EVERYONE will tell you to get your own website, and save the 25% commission.
Folks are only interested in taking their own pets , Wi Fi, and a hot tub, in that order. You can rent out a skip in the middle of a scrapyard these days, as long as it takes pets, has Wi Fi........
£12k per year is the figure often quoted.....we seem to do £5 -9k.
Don't underestimate the time needed to clean it on changeover day. Imagine cleaning your own house top to bottom within 3 hours on a Saturday ( bathroom / kitchen, checking fridge / cooker / microwave, all the crockery and utensils......)
Discounting ? I hate it, although we do it sometimes. Quite enough discounting goes on with farm produce, let alone doing the fecking cottage too.
Need to be there 24/7 really to sort problems. Problems usually clash with vital farm work....

Thanks for that. Needs plenty of bookings before it looks more attractive than a full time occupancy let, by the sounds of it.
 

Pond digger

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Location
East Yorkshire
Phone will never stop by people and firms saying their the best since sliced bread in promoting your cottages.
Most as say charge 20- 30% plus vat if registered and run a owners rate and customer rate?
Yes you got it you get the owners rate that is a lot lower minus all the stoppages.
Tourist boards and tourism dept.of your local Councils often best and go it alone.
To start with.
Thanks for that.
 

Zippy768

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Dorset/Wilts
We have had a holiday cottage for over 15 years I suspect. Jacking it in after this summer and getting a tenant in. Not as popular as it use to be. Mother doesn't want the hassle of cleaning it all in a few hours on changeover. People will leave it in a state and not uncommon for thermostat to left right up :scratchhead:. Shouldnt underestimate the cost of laundering all bed sheet and towels. Time needed to keep garden tidy each week.
Tbh furniture needed updating in ours and we didn't have wi-fi in there. House was modern and garden big with games room.
We were with Welcome Cottages
 

7610 super q

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
I’d be hesitant about pets myself, but I suspect you’re limiting your appeal quite considerably if you don’t allow them. I’m surprised you’ve had no issues, dogs in particular can be messy, smelly creatures!
Yes, limits the market, no doubt about it. If in a few years time the carpets get replaced with wood flooring etc, we might rethink. As it is, it's a full time job cleaning up after humans, let alone pets.
 

Pond digger

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Location
East Yorkshire
We have had a holiday cottage for over 15 years I suspect. Jacking it in after this summer and getting a tenant in. Not as popular as it use to be. Mother doesn't want the hassle of cleaning it all in a few hours on changeover. People will leave it in a state and not uncommon for thermostat to left right up :scratchhead:. Shouldnt underestimate the cost of laundering all bed sheet and towels. Time needed to keep garden tidy each week.
Tbh furniture needed updating in ours and we didn't have wi-fi in there. House was modern and garden big with games room.
We were with Welcome Cottages
I suspect many folks are simply lost without their WiFi, probably a bigger issue than no pets.
 

crofteress

Member
Livestock Farmer
I have 3 cottages, 1. is with Air b and b and the others just have a fb page. Booked march to end of October, no problem with dogs or children, have been doing them single handed for many years. Do all laundry myself, have a great many return guests. Always leave it ok and if they don't they don't get back. Have free wi fi
 

Pond digger

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Location
East Yorkshire
I have 3 cottages, 1. is with Air b and b and the others just have a fb page. Booked march to end of October, no problem with dogs or children, have been doing them single handed for many years. Do all laundry myself, have a great many return guests. Always leave it ok and if they don't they don't get back. Have free wi fi
Sounds encouraging, thanks.
 
Had a big holiday let for over 20 years. The market is now saturated down here, with more 'toys' needed to attract visitors. Hot tub being the latest 'must have'.
As said, cleaning and general maintenance is a tie and hard work every week. As is getting reliable help to do this and keep it up to 4 or 5* standard. My fellow scrubber and I decided we'd had enough a few years ago.

Some guests were excellent, most were OK but some trashed a beautiful house, its contents and accessories (towels etc)

I started with a small letting agency and my own adverts. Ended up with a joint arrangement with a bigger set up, sharing the lets. My best year was 34 weeks, but that was shrinking in latter years as more people diversified.

Air B n' B seems to work for some people. But they find these are shorter lets = more change overs.

And don't forget all the rules and regs on let property. Fire tickets, boilers, 'Elf n' safety etc, PAT testing all electrical stuff annually - the list gets longer every year. But if you haven't got the tickets, your insurance may blink at a claim.
 

Still Farming

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South Wales UK
Had a big holiday let for over 20 years. The market is now saturated down here, with more 'toys' needed to attract visitors. Hot tub being the latest 'must have'.
As said, cleaning and general maintenance is a tie and hard work every week. As is getting reliable help to do this and keep it up to 4 or 5* standard. My fellow scrubber and I decided we'd had enough a few years ago.

Some guests were excellent, most were OK but some trashed a beautiful house, its contents and accessories (towels etc)

I started with a small letting agency and my own adverts. Ended up with a joint arrangement with a bigger set up, sharing the lets. My best year was 34 weeks, but that was shrinking in latter years as more people diversified.

Air B n' B seems to work for some people. But they find these are shorter lets = more change overs.

And don't forget all the rules and regs on let property. Fire tickets, boilers, 'Elf n' safety etc, PAT testing all electrical stuff annually - the list gets longer every year. But if you haven't got the tickets, your insurance may blink at a claim.
A lot on Airbandb side step most or all of these regs as cash generators unlike bonafide business paying VOA Council taxes , HMRC taxes etc etc .
Plenty of unfair competition out there along with the 'all inclusive" holiday in Spain for £200 bargains !
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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