Do you have a holiday home in the UK? Tell me about it. :)
Discussion
Spooky, just asked a very similar question elsewhere.
For those that do rent them out:
I'd be wanting to rent it out some of the time but always been put off by the general admin hassle. It would be more of a bolt hole for us and any lettings would be to help cover costs. The main issue would be distance, I'd imagine a couple of hours away. Fine if you're travelling away for a couple of days, less so if there is a problem that needs attending to.
There are companies that can cover all your needs from lettings to cleaning and maintenance but at a cost. Whilst weekly rents are good it is soon eaten up by costs. Most of the places we have stayed in have had owners close by which would be ideal but I don't want a cottage in Swindon!
Equally the few we have used where owners are clearly distant have had more snagging and little annoying issues mainly, I'd imagine, due to the lack of a once over by the owner looking to have it to their standard not a cleaning company's.
So does anyone do this, especially from a distance?
For those that do rent them out:
I'd be wanting to rent it out some of the time but always been put off by the general admin hassle. It would be more of a bolt hole for us and any lettings would be to help cover costs. The main issue would be distance, I'd imagine a couple of hours away. Fine if you're travelling away for a couple of days, less so if there is a problem that needs attending to.
There are companies that can cover all your needs from lettings to cleaning and maintenance but at a cost. Whilst weekly rents are good it is soon eaten up by costs. Most of the places we have stayed in have had owners close by which would be ideal but I don't want a cottage in Swindon!
Equally the few we have used where owners are clearly distant have had more snagging and little annoying issues mainly, I'd imagine, due to the lack of a once over by the owner looking to have it to their standard not a cleaning company's.
So does anyone do this, especially from a distance?
DKL said:
Spooky, just asked a very similar question elsewhere.
For those that do rent them out:
I'd be wanting to rent it out some of the time but always been put off by the general admin hassle. It would be more of a bolt hole for us and any lettings would be to help cover costs. The main issue would be distance, I'd imagine a couple of hours away. Fine if you're travelling away for a couple of days, less so if there is a problem that needs attending to.
There are companies that can cover all your needs from lettings to cleaning and maintenance but at a cost. Whilst weekly rents are good it is soon eaten up by costs. Most of the places we have stayed in have had owners close by which would be ideal but I don't want a cottage in Swindon!
Equally the few we have used where owners are clearly distant have had more snagging and little annoying issues mainly, I'd imagine, due to the lack of a once over by the owner looking to have it to their standard not a cleaning company's.
So does anyone do this, especially from a distance?
My experiance of renting out my 2nd home (it's in another country but same problems) was always the extremely high utility bills as most people don't care as they have paid a fixed amount for their week/2 weeks, every month the email from management would read the same...'this is broken or this needs replacing', got fed up in the end and decided to rent it out to long term tennants, I know this stops me using it but the rental income pays for me to have free holidays anywhere else so it's a win win situation for me.For those that do rent them out:
I'd be wanting to rent it out some of the time but always been put off by the general admin hassle. It would be more of a bolt hole for us and any lettings would be to help cover costs. The main issue would be distance, I'd imagine a couple of hours away. Fine if you're travelling away for a couple of days, less so if there is a problem that needs attending to.
There are companies that can cover all your needs from lettings to cleaning and maintenance but at a cost. Whilst weekly rents are good it is soon eaten up by costs. Most of the places we have stayed in have had owners close by which would be ideal but I don't want a cottage in Swindon!
Equally the few we have used where owners are clearly distant have had more snagging and little annoying issues mainly, I'd imagine, due to the lack of a once over by the owner looking to have it to their standard not a cleaning company's.
So does anyone do this, especially from a distance?
DKL said:
Spooky, just asked a very similar question elsewhere.
For those that do rent them out:
I'd be wanting to rent it out some of the time but always been put off by the general admin hassle. It would be more of a bolt hole for us and any lettings would be to help cover costs. The main issue would be distance, I'd imagine a couple of hours away. Fine if you're travelling away for a couple of days, less so if there is a problem that needs attending to.
There are companies that can cover all your needs from lettings to cleaning and maintenance but at a cost. Whilst weekly rents are good it is soon eaten up by costs. Most of the places we have stayed in have had owners close by which would be ideal but I don't want a cottage in Swindon!
Equally the few we have used where owners are clearly distant have had more snagging and little annoying issues mainly, I'd imagine, due to the lack of a once over by the owner looking to have it to their standard not a cleaning company's.
So does anyone do this, especially from a distance?
It is a challenge. & yes, it starts to restrict the times you can go (or you have to think about it 9+ months in advance!), but for us it meant the place pays for itself.For those that do rent them out:
I'd be wanting to rent it out some of the time but always been put off by the general admin hassle. It would be more of a bolt hole for us and any lettings would be to help cover costs. The main issue would be distance, I'd imagine a couple of hours away. Fine if you're travelling away for a couple of days, less so if there is a problem that needs attending to.
There are companies that can cover all your needs from lettings to cleaning and maintenance but at a cost. Whilst weekly rents are good it is soon eaten up by costs. Most of the places we have stayed in have had owners close by which would be ideal but I don't want a cottage in Swindon!
Equally the few we have used where owners are clearly distant have had more snagging and little annoying issues mainly, I'd imagine, due to the lack of a once over by the owner looking to have it to their standard not a cleaning company's.
So does anyone do this, especially from a distance?
For a few years we got down every 6 weeks or so & our then small kids loved it....after a few years, they realised their friends went to places like France....& wanted to "have a real holiday", hence we started letting it out!
But maintenance is a challenge & a ballache.....some days I wonder why I bother, it feels like bloody hard work.....others (esp when we are there!) I remember....
Life is a journey not a destination: if you feel you will get good use for a good few years, then why not!
Just building one at the moment.... so hopefully it will all work out.
It is 1 1/2 hours on a clear run and as bad as 4hours on a bank holiday Friday...
Don’t really want the hassle or renting it, nor the feeling that it is not ‘ours’, however the indicative weekly rents do look tempting!
It is 1 1/2 hours on a clear run and as bad as 4hours on a bank holiday Friday...
Don’t really want the hassle or renting it, nor the feeling that it is not ‘ours’, however the indicative weekly rents do look tempting!
mikeiow said:
It is a challenge. & yes, it starts to restrict the times you can go (or you have to think about it 9+ months in advance!), but for us it meant the place pays for itself.
For a few years we got down every 6 weeks or so & our then small kids loved it....after a few years, they realised their friends went to places like France....& wanted to "have a real holiday", hence we started letting it out!
But maintenance is a challenge & a ballache.....some days I wonder why I bother, it feels like bloody hard work.....others (esp when we are there!) I remember....
Life is a journey not a destination: if you feel you will get good use for a good few years, then why not!
Cheers Mike. How much of the organisation (cleaning/bookings etc) do you do yourselves and how much do you farm out to others?For a few years we got down every 6 weeks or so & our then small kids loved it....after a few years, they realised their friends went to places like France....& wanted to "have a real holiday", hence we started letting it out!
But maintenance is a challenge & a ballache.....some days I wonder why I bother, it feels like bloody hard work.....others (esp when we are there!) I remember....
Life is a journey not a destination: if you feel you will get good use for a good few years, then why not!
In 2004 we married, bought a place on the Isle of Skye and moved there as our permanent home, working part time. 2005 son is born, 2009 decide I need a proper job again and move to Yorkshire. Since 2009 until March this year it became a "second home".
We used it at Easter for a week, Summer for two, October a week and wife sometimes used in February for a week, all to fit into the school holidays. In-laws used it two weeks of the year.
Getting there took around 9 hours with wife, son, two dogs. (Seven and a half on my own with only a stop for fuel and a wee).
Whenever I went, I spent the time, cutting the 600mm high grass, pulling weeds from the gravel, painting the shed & the bungalows rendered walls which kept growing moss, cutting back the rhodedendron, cleaning gutters etc. See why I called it a second home not a holiday home?
Rent it out? In 2009/10 I set up a web site for it, we kitted it out with new crockery etc then wife decided it was too precious to rent and risk damage to the things we bought for US not renters. On top of that there was the extra insurance, licencing, and the need for someone to do the change over every week. The people on Skye who do change overs know their worth and charge accordingly. Then what happens if the heating etc breaks, I'm not there to fix it.
And finally, winter of 2011 I think it was, temps dropped to -16 degrees. Pipe burst in loft floods the kitchen, diner, lounge, totally destroying everything there including the actual floor because of delays by the insurance company. Took a year for the insurance to sort it and get the repairs done.
Never again. We have just bought a place near Oban. Wife and son now live there, I'm moving up there once I retire (next year wife says) and we sell the place in Yorkshire. Then maybe I can have a few holidays.
We used it at Easter for a week, Summer for two, October a week and wife sometimes used in February for a week, all to fit into the school holidays. In-laws used it two weeks of the year.
Getting there took around 9 hours with wife, son, two dogs. (Seven and a half on my own with only a stop for fuel and a wee).
Whenever I went, I spent the time, cutting the 600mm high grass, pulling weeds from the gravel, painting the shed & the bungalows rendered walls which kept growing moss, cutting back the rhodedendron, cleaning gutters etc. See why I called it a second home not a holiday home?
Rent it out? In 2009/10 I set up a web site for it, we kitted it out with new crockery etc then wife decided it was too precious to rent and risk damage to the things we bought for US not renters. On top of that there was the extra insurance, licencing, and the need for someone to do the change over every week. The people on Skye who do change overs know their worth and charge accordingly. Then what happens if the heating etc breaks, I'm not there to fix it.
And finally, winter of 2011 I think it was, temps dropped to -16 degrees. Pipe burst in loft floods the kitchen, diner, lounge, totally destroying everything there including the actual floor because of delays by the insurance company. Took a year for the insurance to sort it and get the repairs done.
Never again. We have just bought a place near Oban. Wife and son now live there, I'm moving up there once I retire (next year wife says) and we sell the place in Yorkshire. Then maybe I can have a few holidays.
DKL said:
Cheers Mike. How much of the organisation (cleaning/bookings etc) do you do yourselves and how much do you farm out to others?
For bookings we use Sykes......originally used. A local agent: Sykes were recommended, took a higher % but earned us a good 15% more 'cos they are better at selling weeks at higher prices!For cleaning & maintenance, we are lucky to have family who do changeovers...did have other local cl aning/gardening 'staff' originally, but that has it's own challenges....still feels like I do have to organise a fair bit....
-how far away is yours?
90 mins.
-do you live in an urban area?
Semi-rural.
-how big is the holiday home?
160m2 - 5 bedrooms, all en-suite.
-what kind of place is it in (town? village?)
In a historic seaside town on an island, close to the mountains.
-how often do you use it and are you tempted to rent it out eg airbnb?
Family use only, and not rented out. If you intend to rent it out, read your mortgage T&C's carefully.
90 mins.
-do you live in an urban area?
Semi-rural.
-how big is the holiday home?
160m2 - 5 bedrooms, all en-suite.
-what kind of place is it in (town? village?)
In a historic seaside town on an island, close to the mountains.
-how often do you use it and are you tempted to rent it out eg airbnb?
Family use only, and not rented out. If you intend to rent it out, read your mortgage T&C's carefully.
Yes, we have one.
We live on the edge of a 10yr old development near Hitchin, Herts - probably one of the better regarded 'new' developments around here - but although we have cows and sheep in the fields behind, it isn't rural by any means.
We bought a cottage (middle of a row of 3, plus there's a couple of other houses along the same loke) in a sleepy hamlet (Twyford, Norfolk) a couple of years ago now. It didn't need any work, just some tweaks to the decoration and a few 'projects' here and there, to turn it into somewhere we love to go and stay.
Door to door, on a Friday night, it takes about 1hr 45m.
It is 2 'proper' bedrooms, plus an occasional single. huge lounge diner / big kitchen / utility, then 2 good sized bedrooms and a generous bathroom upstairs, plus the occasional single as well. There's not an inch of wasted floor space as there are no hallways or landings and 2 sets of stairs (1 Norfolk winder, 1 spiral) so it is quirky and fun.
As we are 'doggy people', it is the perfect spot to take our 2. The beaches, pubs, restaurants and scenery are all very dog-friendly.
This year we booked it out pretty solidly throughout most of May and June to get some garden and exterior projects done. Me and Mrs Timetex were there quite a bit over that period - sometimes together, sometimes on our own, replaced a tired rear porch with a lovely oak framed boot room, took up some of the huge garden, put up some 5-bar gates and made a big off-road parking space. Got some more projects for early next year including a big gazebo for the garden with outdoor furniture etc.
Do we use it? Possibly not quite as much as we'd like - but that's because it is booked out to guests, not because we can't be bothered to go. We had to shoehorn in a day at the start of December just to get some decorations up!
What's good about it? It is your comfortable space, with the stuff you've planned to be there - a nice smart TV, a nespresso coffee machine, a sonos for the music - but WITHOUT all the clutter you accumulate at home. Bills aren't an issue (a Nest was fitted this year) and we have an honesty box so people don't take the piss burning through an entire log-store full of logs on the burner.
Downsides? It is 'inconvenient' when guests message you late on a Sunday afternoon to tell you they don't think the boiler is working. But we know the right people to call and had someone there in 30 minutes. We've also had just 1 lot of guests in 2+ years not treat the place well, but they were a definite exception. When we do go we never just kick back and relax for the weekend as there is always something to be tinkering with, but then that's kind of what Mrs Timetex enjoys (we can't sit and relax at home either!) so that's not really a function of having the cottage.
Ours is rented with a national agency (we changed this year from cottages.com to Norfolk Country Cottages) but the main slew of bookings come via AirBnB. It is rented out with a very good occupancy rate, and I guesstimate that it will have cleared £20k per annum in bookings (after fees) for each of the years we have let it out, which is approaching a 9% yield.
Yes, from that, we have some costs to subtract - cleaning being the biggest - but as a proposition, it is far less hassle than you might imagine.
Key here is a good cleaning company - they are key holders in the event of any guest issues or problems, and usually act as the first line of contact (except AirBnB guests do tend to message me directly even when I give them the management company details in the house manual!) and they clean to our standards. Honestly, we can walk in after a few months and it never feels like anybody else has stayed. Other than the cleaning company, we also have a gardener who does the exterior bits and pieces.
It is pet friendly (advice of the cleaning company - it takes no more cleaning but broadens the market substantially) and quite a lot of our guests have a dog or 2, but you would never know.
We've got some favourite pubs and things to do in the area so we don't get bored - but time there isn't a 'holiday' either. It is just a different set of 4 walls to be in - and one that is easily self-sufficient in terms of costs.
In an ideal world, I'd love a place in Cornwall, Devon, North Yorks, North Scotland etc. but travel time would mean it was never used... North Norfolk is a good compromise - unspoiled part of the UK (by and large) if a little less 'quaint' than some of the Cornish seaside places - but never more than 1hr45 door to door means we can visit pretty much whenever we like...
We live on the edge of a 10yr old development near Hitchin, Herts - probably one of the better regarded 'new' developments around here - but although we have cows and sheep in the fields behind, it isn't rural by any means.
We bought a cottage (middle of a row of 3, plus there's a couple of other houses along the same loke) in a sleepy hamlet (Twyford, Norfolk) a couple of years ago now. It didn't need any work, just some tweaks to the decoration and a few 'projects' here and there, to turn it into somewhere we love to go and stay.
Door to door, on a Friday night, it takes about 1hr 45m.
It is 2 'proper' bedrooms, plus an occasional single. huge lounge diner / big kitchen / utility, then 2 good sized bedrooms and a generous bathroom upstairs, plus the occasional single as well. There's not an inch of wasted floor space as there are no hallways or landings and 2 sets of stairs (1 Norfolk winder, 1 spiral) so it is quirky and fun.
As we are 'doggy people', it is the perfect spot to take our 2. The beaches, pubs, restaurants and scenery are all very dog-friendly.
This year we booked it out pretty solidly throughout most of May and June to get some garden and exterior projects done. Me and Mrs Timetex were there quite a bit over that period - sometimes together, sometimes on our own, replaced a tired rear porch with a lovely oak framed boot room, took up some of the huge garden, put up some 5-bar gates and made a big off-road parking space. Got some more projects for early next year including a big gazebo for the garden with outdoor furniture etc.
Do we use it? Possibly not quite as much as we'd like - but that's because it is booked out to guests, not because we can't be bothered to go. We had to shoehorn in a day at the start of December just to get some decorations up!
What's good about it? It is your comfortable space, with the stuff you've planned to be there - a nice smart TV, a nespresso coffee machine, a sonos for the music - but WITHOUT all the clutter you accumulate at home. Bills aren't an issue (a Nest was fitted this year) and we have an honesty box so people don't take the piss burning through an entire log-store full of logs on the burner.
Downsides? It is 'inconvenient' when guests message you late on a Sunday afternoon to tell you they don't think the boiler is working. But we know the right people to call and had someone there in 30 minutes. We've also had just 1 lot of guests in 2+ years not treat the place well, but they were a definite exception. When we do go we never just kick back and relax for the weekend as there is always something to be tinkering with, but then that's kind of what Mrs Timetex enjoys (we can't sit and relax at home either!) so that's not really a function of having the cottage.
Ours is rented with a national agency (we changed this year from cottages.com to Norfolk Country Cottages) but the main slew of bookings come via AirBnB. It is rented out with a very good occupancy rate, and I guesstimate that it will have cleared £20k per annum in bookings (after fees) for each of the years we have let it out, which is approaching a 9% yield.
Yes, from that, we have some costs to subtract - cleaning being the biggest - but as a proposition, it is far less hassle than you might imagine.
Key here is a good cleaning company - they are key holders in the event of any guest issues or problems, and usually act as the first line of contact (except AirBnB guests do tend to message me directly even when I give them the management company details in the house manual!) and they clean to our standards. Honestly, we can walk in after a few months and it never feels like anybody else has stayed. Other than the cleaning company, we also have a gardener who does the exterior bits and pieces.
It is pet friendly (advice of the cleaning company - it takes no more cleaning but broadens the market substantially) and quite a lot of our guests have a dog or 2, but you would never know.
We've got some favourite pubs and things to do in the area so we don't get bored - but time there isn't a 'holiday' either. It is just a different set of 4 walls to be in - and one that is easily self-sufficient in terms of costs.
In an ideal world, I'd love a place in Cornwall, Devon, North Yorks, North Scotland etc. but travel time would mean it was never used... North Norfolk is a good compromise - unspoiled part of the UK (by and large) if a little less 'quaint' than some of the Cornish seaside places - but never more than 1hr45 door to door means we can visit pretty much whenever we like...
Oh, and I meant to add - ours is mortgaged on a specific holiday-let product.
Also it is no longer registered with the local council for Council Tax, so it is business rates instead. Which have a 0-rate exemption so there's nothing currently to pay.
A good clean (including laundering our linen and towels and replacing with spares from our own stock - they have 3 sets of everything) is about £100, so isn't cheap - but it is done properly.
With a Nest and a lot of the lighting converted (tastefully) to LED, bills are negligible.
Also it is no longer registered with the local council for Council Tax, so it is business rates instead. Which have a 0-rate exemption so there's nothing currently to pay.
A good clean (including laundering our linen and towels and replacing with spares from our own stock - they have 3 sets of everything) is about £100, so isn't cheap - but it is done properly.
With a Nest and a lot of the lighting converted (tastefully) to LED, bills are negligible.
Much depends on your personality.
If you're a homely type who likes to go the same holiday resort every year, then a holiday home in one place works fine.
If you're an explorer type who likes to holiday somewhere different every year, then a fixed holiday home will soon get old.
Another option is to buy a sports or super car or bike and drive somewhere different every other weekend. Know someone in Munich who has a BMW sportsbike and he and his wife go to Italy and then France and then Austria and so on. It mixes things up a bit.
If you're a homely type who likes to go the same holiday resort every year, then a holiday home in one place works fine.
If you're an explorer type who likes to holiday somewhere different every year, then a fixed holiday home will soon get old.
Another option is to buy a sports or super car or bike and drive somewhere different every other weekend. Know someone in Munich who has a BMW sportsbike and he and his wife go to Italy and then France and then Austria and so on. It mixes things up a bit.
timetex - that's a very informative post. You say that a clean costs £100, but what do you have done after a short stay (if you accept them) of, say, three nights? Or just a linen change if that's all that's required? Otherwise a charge of £100 would eat massively into the rental income.
Also what sort of cut does Airbnb take, and do you charge less through them?
Also what sort of cut does Airbnb take, and do you charge less through them?
Interesting topic. For those who have a place that you don't rent out and only get to a few weekends a year, do you have someone keep an eye on it / cut the grass etc? And do you have to have a special mortgage (IIRC I have to tell my mortgage company if my house is going to be empty for more than 30 days).
48k said:
Interesting topic. For those who have a place that you don't rent out and only get to a few weekends a year, do you have someone keep an eye on it / cut the grass etc? And do you have to have a special mortgage (IIRC I have to tell my mortgage company if my house is going to be empty for more than 30 days).
Although we rent ours out, the answers would still be the same as you can never guarantee it will be rented - so definitely it needs someone to look after the external areas (cut the grass etc.) and you'd need insurance and a mortgage provider happy with it being left for periods unattended.Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area said:
timetex - that's a very informative post. You say that a clean costs £100, but what do you have done after a short stay (if you accept them) of, say, three nights? Or just a linen change if that's all that's required? Otherwise a charge of £100 would eat massively into the rental income.
Also what sort of cut does Airbnb take, and do you charge less through them?
The only time we DON'T have it cleaned 'properly' is when we've been in it for the week / weekend and we know we're the next people back in again - in which case we leave it clean ourselves and come back to it.Also what sort of cut does Airbnb take, and do you charge less through them?
Every other time (including the times WE stay) it is cleaned 'properly' - including linen and towel changes. TBH, there was no point us trying to clean it to the 'pro' standards (and take 2 hours of our time) plus we don't keep the spare linen and towels onsite (the cleaning company has 2 sets, plus 1 on the bed).
They charge us a per hour rate for cleaning (slightly more than our own house clean but the key holder services are 'free') plus an additional amount per bed change / towel change - so it is marginally cheaper if the cottage isn't fully occupied.
The amount of cleaning needed doesn't vary whether people have been there 3 nights or 14 nights, so we just budget accordingly.
You're right, it can eat into the rental income - but we have a minimum booking of 3 nights and even in the low season, the rental income more than covers the mortgage interest, cleaning costs, logs, oil, electricity, insurance, but it makes more money (obviously) during the higher season (and half term, Christmas, New Year etc.)
The rental rates for shorter bookings are also proportionally more expensive than bookings for a week - so if someone books 3 days and someone else books 4 days in a week, it returns more income than a single 7 day booking, which also covers the cost of the additional changeover.
AirBnB make their money by charging a fee on top of the price you set on their platform, so guests effectively pay the cut to them directly - so you can set prices accordingly. They take a very small service fee from us for a booking, but it is nominal in the grand scheme of things.
We try and make sure the price of the cottage is similar across the different site(s) it is advertised on, but actually this is a LOT harder than it sounds, as some places have a charge for a weekly booking, then apply rules if you want it shorter (e.g. a long weekend is 75% of the week, a 4-day break is 85% or whatever) whereas AirBnB prices per night and you then have to try and fudge the weekend and weekly prices within that.
The site it actually looks best on (I really like their photos) is Norfolk Country Cottages:
https://www.norfolkcottages.co.uk/norfolk-countrys...
You can easily see one of the projects we did this year:
Although we've since fettled that piece of green oak bench which is curving slightly!
(it used to look like this!)
Hoofy said:
Just wondering as I am considering a small flat or something else away from the big smoke.
-how far away is yours?
-do you live in an urban area?
-how big is the holiday home?
-what kind of place is it in (town? village?)
-how often do you use it and are you tempted to rent it out eg airbnb?
Just realised that you're shadowninja! Hello. -how far away is yours?
-do you live in an urban area?
-how big is the holiday home?
-what kind of place is it in (town? village?)
-how often do you use it and are you tempted to rent it out eg airbnb?
There are a few things I have learned both from my parent's and my own experiences:
I've always lived in London. As a child my mother had a cottage in North Yorkshire and my father kept a boat on the south coast. All our childhood holidays and most weekends were spent between them. As a child it was absolutely awesome. The bustle of the city during the week and then weekends playing about on the water or weeks up on the moors. It was idillic. We also had friends to play with whether it was other London kids on the next mooring or local kids in the village. But from my parents perspective it was hard work. My father would spend much of the weekend maintaining the boat and the house would be very cold and damp when we arrived and my mother would spend a lot of time cleaning and sorting it out.
For me, I grew up completely used to getting in a car on a Friday night and spending the weekend somewhere different and I ended up buying a cottage in the Cotswolds after getting drunk at a mate's house and deciding the cottage that was for sale next door would be fun. I also bought my wife a place in Sicily which she could use to visit family and we could use for longer breaks. In the last few years, after about 15 years of ownership I have sold both.
There were things I got right and things that later transpired I had got wrong.
The apartment in Sicily was a lovely place but the problem was one of convenience. When the children arrived the work needed to pack them up, suffer the misery of only being able to use Ryanair and having to hire baby seats at the other end just meant that the amount of times we used it dropped off a cliff. And once the children went to school you then had to pay the flight premiums of traveling out of term. To cap it all Ryanair stopped going from Luton which was just up the road and flew out of Stanstead making the journey to the airport longer. Plus they then stopped flying out of the local airport that was a few miles from the apartment so we had to fly into Palermo and drive for an hour. In short it stopped being fun and the economics very clearly showed that it would be much cheaper to stay at top end hotels when we went than own a property there. So I sold the apartment. What I have subsequently learnt is that if your wife is spending all week feeding and maintaining young children then moving the family into a good hotel works miracles in recharging her batteries. It is an absolute win/win to pay much less and to be getting much more.
Back to the cottage in the Cotswolds. Here, I had my eyes much wider open. You could get to the cottage in 1h30 from NW3. You could take all the kit you needed and have lots of other stuff there. It was in a nice village that was welcoming so you joined the community and most importantly it offered key life pleasures that aren't available in London so it was a real benefit. We had years of log fires, BBQs, shooting, pub lock ins and a property small enough that you felt no pressure to try and Holiday let it or use it every weekend. It was perfect.
Over the years a few things changed. The speed at which you could get out of London dropped dramatically. The journey had once been done in 1h04 (the less said about that the better) but Crossrail made getting out into the M40 take much longer and then long term works around Oxford added to it. For a long time the journey took over 2 hours. At the same time the two children appeared. While shifting them from A to B was very easy, I had grown up being transport all over the place all the time and my wife was a professional global traveler for 20 years the actual problem was one of space. Our home in London was considerably larger than the cottage and once it had two children in it and prams and baby chairs it ceased to be a cosy little get away and we suddenly realised that we were staying in London more weekends.
One day I was wondering home and I suddenly did the basic maths which was that the smallness of the cottage meant that even if property values continued to rise the capital growth would never exceed the annual running costs and opportunity cost of what £250k locked in the cottage could earn elsewhere. Renting it out full time or as a holiday let would have washed its face but as soon as you thought like that it was a commercial play andnone which wasn't as good as other commercial plays. The final realisation was that my neighbour ran their slightly larger cottage next door as a premium holiday let and that if we used that as often (once a month) as we used ours it was not only much cheaper but I didn't have to spend any of my weekend doing maintenance around two small children that my wife needed a break from.
So with that epiphany I realised that my mistake had been buying a place too small to facilitate life's evolutions and sold it. A larger place would have delivered capital growth to exceed the costs and remained relaxing when children came along. It still wouldn't have fixed the problem of the longer journey but that has improved as the works for crossrail and in of order have come to an end.
Did I miss the apartment in Sicily? No. I should never have bought it. It was a case of more money than sense and using hotels was always the better option.
Did I miss the cottage? Yes. I got so much right. Chose somewhere near enough to be easy to get back and forth from but far enough away to be a different world. I chose somewhere in a nice community that welcomed you and I chose something that offered all the things the London home couldn't. Now the children are 5&6 have all the issues gone away? Yes. In reality the error of space was a short term one but my wife suffered from PND and for a few years it made commercial and common sense to sell.
At the end of last year we began looking for another holiday home in the Cotswolds. We decided that this time we would buy bigger so that it would be a more solid base to live out of and that we could decamp to it for the whole school holidays just nipping back into London for events. Being larger we could also, if needed, lock up a couple of rooms and rent the rest out through premium holiday let firms. We got so much right the first time and we're going to fix the little things that we got wrong.
The problem was that there simply wasn't much on the market. Then my wife made the mistake of looking on rightmove for fantasy homes and found one that she fell in love with. The end result is that we thought 'sod it' and have moved out here full time. We now go into London every other weekend for our breaks but are struggling to learn how to get AirBnB to work properly and obviously our type of hotel tends to be £1k/night which takes the icing off the cake. At the moment we will do one weekend in Mayfair or Knightsbridge and the next at the Holiday Inn on the Finchley Road but we've both decided that we need our own place in Town so are now looking for a 2 bed apartment in Zone 1 that's easy to get to by car and train from here but easy to walk into the action and back.
We are definitely a family that craves London life but also country life while having an abject fear of suburbia.
So, after all that long winded waffle my advice from personal experience is:
Only buy something that is geneuinely flexible. It has to be easy to get to by more than one means. It has to be flexible to cope with your life changes whether that is needing more space for children or enough space to be commercially viable. It has to be able to work well as a business even if you don't plan to use it as such. The Cotswolds has tourism all year round and is sandwiched between the two big English cities. You have to buy somewhere with a warm community. You need shops. You need pubs. You need restaurants and you need nice neighbours. It has to work both as a an easy to reach weekend bolt hole and also a long term holiday retreat. And above all, you have to really want to be there. I have to have the countryside in my life even though I am addicted to London.
You have to make sure that it adds to your quality of life not just today but has the flexibility to continue to do so as your life evolves. And you also have to accept that it is a cost. You can offset some of the costs but never all so it has to be something that you know you need in your life.
If it doesn't fit those core criteria then you are infinitely better off to rent someone else's loss making second home they bought by mistake than to join them on the wrong side of the party.
Unexpected Item In The Bagging Area said:
Thanks again, it's all useful info in case we go down this route. Your cottage looks lovely, it's a shame it's so far from us!
No problem. I don't sugar coat anything - there's some admin that goes along with it all as well, making sure it is cleaned on schedule and never double-booked (a possibility when it is listed in several locations!) - but it does make enough money to do projects to it, etc.We emptied the 'cottage' bank account over the summer to pay for a big new off-road parking area, 5-bar gates, move the oil tank, and do the boot room - but it is back to having enough money in it for the next project (early next year) which will be a large gazebo (4.5m x 9m?) a new shed (and get rid of the last remaining one that was there when we moved in) and some planting to soften these new features.
Since we bought it, we've taken down 2 sheds already (one was asbestos) plus a greenhouse and a 1.5 garage (also asbestos) and a lot of the 6ft fencing which separated the lovely courtyard garden from the larger garden, and demolishing the last 'old' shed will really open up the sight lines into the main garden from the kitchen / boot room which will be lovely.
I just say this to advise - you'll never be short of projects. But as that is something we actually enjoy doing, it does add to the ownership prospect for us - not detract from it... but if we were the type that just wanted to own our own 'hotel room' away from home that we did nothing to, having all these projects to do would definitely be burdensome!
Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff