Lay My Hat

No huge difference but bookings appear to be stronger than last year.

Thanks Charles, always an interesting read, our Cornish apartment is doing very well in contrast with our Florida property which did great last year.

Our apartment in Cornwall has an inclusive fee and our condo in Florida has an extra cleaning fee which seems to be pretty standard in the US and doesn't seem to put anyone off although personally I think it should be all one inclusive fee shown up front.

We use www.selfcatercornwall.co.uk for our place in Newquay. Fees are ok and they have done ok for us. Large enough to turn up on search engines nice and high up but still approachable people with a personal touch

There are much better places to buy a holiday rental than Orlando. Either parts of the gulf coast or, where we bought, St Augustine are better bets. We've only just completed our first year and made a good profit. In addition, St Augustine is lovely. Sarasota, Fort Myers or Clearwater are also good ...

We have always used an agent for our apartment in Cornwall. They take their 'pound of flesh' but they get ours booked up with no hassle and generally do a good job. They are www.selfcatercornwall.com, small enough to know their market very well but big enough to count. Even if you only use them for ...

Unless your holiday home was owned by a company and you took a wage in order to run the business. Not really viable for a single holiday let though!

My immediate thoughts are that this is a very badly thought out policy that will alienate many people who are likely to vote Tory as well as being extremely unfair! While the rich BTL owners who don't have mortgages will be fine, the poor sods, like many on this forum have just the one or a few holi...

Tricky problem. In these situations I generally start with presenting them with facts as you see them i.e. the sofa bed was fine when they arrived and broken when they left and ask them for their side of the story before coming to any conclusions or making any decisions. If they owned up to it and o...

The current concerns over the number of false and 'paid for' reviews may caution people about relying on just reviews to choose their holiday home or anything else for that matter. When looking at reviews, I have a good look at the people who are reviewing them. Amazing or very bad reviews posted by...

We pay £70 for a one bedroom apartment in Cornwall including all linen which appears to be fairly standard for this area. They do a great job too.

We'll have to agree to agree to disagree on this one Charles and this comes from someone who reviews everything on Tripadvisor and is in the top 10 reviewers in my area! There are large numbers of self-catering properties for which there has been no reviews or not enough to be credible. This may cha...

As your boiler is a combi then I think either NEST or HIVE could work for you providing they are compatible with your boiler, you should be able to check on their websites. With both you'll be able to control the settings remotely and monitor usage. Each have their own advantages but either would pr...

I have to disagree as both a consumer and a holiday rental owner. Reviews and quality marks are fundamentally different things. As a consumer I would look at both reviews and quality marks. Reviews are very subjective and often difficult to get enough credible reviews to form a complete view. Indepe...

Has anyone looked at NEST? It seems to fit the bill for our Florida condo and would have three main functions I would be interested in 1. Can manage it remotely via wifi 2. Can lock high/low temperature settings limits 3. Is promoted as a 'learning' thermostat with a PIR sensor.