If you are planning to buy a rental home, or you're thinking about what to do with one you have just acquired, this is the place for any questions about starting out in the rentals business.
TGS wrote:Do any of you have any opinions on a wise and sensible percentage occupancy rate to use?
I know this a bit like asking how long is a piece of string. I was thinking of doing two - one at 60% and a more optimistic 80%.
Both of those figures sound good starting points, based on the fact that it is an existing business rather than starting from the ground up. Remember that it can be relatively easy to influence your occupancy rate by the rates you charge. Price them low and you may easily fill it, but then you should be thinking about profit margins rather than occupancy rates.
Welcome to LMH by the way. Look forward to hearing your progress reports.
I did a monthly forecast and still work on this for my own property and I actually varied the occupancy depending on the month. Had occupancy targeted at 60/65% in Jan/Feb/Dec but increased up to 100% in August. To be honest Edinburgh is probably a different market to you entirely but as I treat the figures as more of a target than a forecast, it helps with pricing as well and I'm generally 95%+ occupied year round but looking at the figures allows me to reduce the rates to what occupancy I'd targeted for last minute or weekday bookings etc...if that makes sense!
