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Investment: Long lets - Ross Elder, HolidayLettings.co.uk

Why offer long lets at your holiday home

Summer weeks, long weekends, mini breaks are all obvious holiday types to market your home as suitable and available for. When it comes to selling off peak weeks the latter are most likely your primary source of income and will require some dedicated marketing attention, if not special offers to entice a somewhat smaller off peak holidaymaker audience and an little-changed sea of holidaymaker options.

There is one option missing there though – long lets. Offering to consider long let enquiries is well worth it from the perspective of maximising your rental income, minimise running costs (by reducing the number of changeovers you do), ensuring your home doesn’t stand empty for extended periods of time (doesn’t breach your insurance policy minimum vacant period clause) and supports its local economy during quieter times of the year.

Long lets appeal to a wide range of people from retirees seeking winter sun, artists and writers seeking time for quiet reflection, those who want to ‘try before you buy’ a second home or those who are looking to relocate and get a feel for a place as well as those with dispiriting ailments such as arthritis, which is heightened by cold damp weather. You may also attract keen golfers if your home is central to a host of well known courses, or someone who is simply on sabbatical.

To catch the eyes of these potential guests you need to be quite upfront about your long let offering. Consider the minimum or maximum let you will take. Understand what your home and/or your location has to offer in order to entice longer term guests and ensure these elements form part of your long let marketing. Your long let marketing doesn’t necessarily have to be additional or separate to your existing marketing. It would benefit though from some prominence or separation within that content, stating why it’s a great winter sun, or long let location.

One of the most fantastic messages for long lets is the concept of being able to ‘live like a local’. This applies to those on sabbatical and those getting to know an area before buying their own holiday home there, or relocating to the area. In talking this type of audience, your personal knowledge of the local area, especially any seasonal events or activities will be valuable anecdotes to include.

Some important things you will need to consider are the legalities surrounding longer lets in the country where your holiday home is, or within the complex. You should explore the need for longer term tenancy agreements, tenant rights, squatters’ rights and the covenants dictating community life if your home is on a complex. Other rules relate to what is called zoning, which is particularly prominent in the US and Croatia, but also has implications in Malta and Spain. In most cases this reflects the restrictions of lets of certain periods and/or the need for a licence to let or requirement to register your home with the local authorities as a trading business. For clarification on these matters, it is best to seek legal advice from someone with expertise on the law in the country in which your holiday home is situated.

Otherwise, enjoy the extra income, the reduce changeovers and happy guests!

Ross Elder

A buy-to-let investor and holiday home owner, Ross is passionate about doing holiday home letting effectively and efficiently with oodles of customer care. He is a keynote speaker on successfully marketing and managing holiday home lettings and instils much of his drive into the team at Holiday Lettings. Founded by Ross and his business partner Andy Firth in 1999, the company is now the busiest holiday home website in the UK

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