Experience letting in Devon?

[Gettingthere]

Hi

We're just considering letting our house in Devon for occasional holiday lets. I just wondered if anyone here has experience of Devon and has a view on the best places to advertise.

Classic Cottages http://www.classic.co.uk/ market them extremely well, and ours is very much in their 'style' but they take a huge commission (23%) and more specifically are rigid about how many weeks we MUST make the house available during the May-Sept season. It's our holiday house too, so we will sometimes want to use it during the peak season.

The Tourist Board website has been mentioned to me, but doing google searches for cottages in devon never seems to bring their site up. Does anyone find it (along with their accreditation) any use?

Angus

[apexblue]

Hello and welcome - our experience in Wales was to use holidaylets.net - we did use an agent but got more bookings then they did and they terminated our account with them thereby saving us 23 per cent on bookings - we rent out 50 weeks - based on last 3 years - with hard to let weeks going onto ebay auction or ebay classified ads - also if you rent out for 70 days per year you can go onto business rates which
is a saving - to us - of 25 per cent off domestic

Other sites are holidayrentals ownersdirect or holidaylettings

www.northwalesholidaylets.co.uk

[goosie]

Welcome Angus,

I think your first question should be whether you want to handle the rental bookings yourself or go through an agent like classic cottages who handle the booking process. You will find that if you go for the latter they will charge about 23% commission PLUS VAT (you need to read the small print) as standard. The best way to check their booking/popularity is to look at the availability calendars of a range of competitors to see how booked up they seem to be - remembering that this is only a guideline as it may also be showing other owner's use of the property.

You should also do internet searches with the type of thing you think people will look for to see what comes up first as these are likely to be more popular. You should also ask about their other marketing as many of these companies do brochures but depending on the time of year you register, you may have missed being in one for next season.

If you want to manage all the bookings yourself, you will save a significant amount of money but it is time consuming process. Again, internet search will bring the ones in for your area. We are in the Cotswolds and have done well with holidaylettings and holiday-rentals but less well with holidaylets.

good luck!

[Gettingthere]

Thanks for the tips - very useful.

I did an internet search recently using various search terms and classic cottages came up most times. Their commission is actually 23.5% INCL VAT. Its that plus lack of flexibility to decide when we use the place ourselves over the summer that really puts me off.

Holidaylettings came up a lot too so they may be the one to go for. Not so much holiday-rentals, but I liked their site more.

Any views on the Tourist Information grading and whether its worth having? In Devon their accommodation site is http://www.visitdevon.co.uk/ but I don't think it came up on the searches. On the other hand presumably some people just go direct to tourist information anyway??

Angus

[Margaret]

I don't think you can usually list on tourist board sites unless you have been graded?

[goosie]

Angus, Margaret is right - you need to be tourist board rated. Their requirements are very exacting (no flat pack furniture, dressing table in at least one room, matching kitchen cooking utensils and the like). You have to pay to get rated and then pay to become a member which allows you to use the logo. From people I know who are rated, it brings in more foreign tourists who will use that as a quality standard but is less important these days for UK-based holdiay makers.

[Gettingthere]

Sorry yes - I meant having been given one of their ratings. I had no idea it was quite so exacting though! Dressing table I can probably do - depending on how they define dressing table - and likewise pots and pans. If there are too many of those sorts of requirements I might get unstuck.

I'll look further into it. But you reckon it's only really useful for attracting people from abroad?

Angus

[kirkland]

I`d say do your own thing, since when did a piece of flat pack furniture dictate the quality of your stay..?

[apexblue]

We achieved 5 stars from the Welsh Tourist Board and only got one booking directly from them so personally wouldn't waste your money - needless to say didn't renew as ratings changed last year - one friend I know in Conwy went from 4 stars to 1 star and property was exactly the same - immaculate

www.northwalesholidaylets.co.uk

[Christine Kenyon]

I think your first question should be whether you want to handle the rental bookings yourself or go through an agent like classic cottages who handle the booking process.

Goosie is spot on ~ and I don't think you've answered this question yet.

If you go through an agency, they will generally charge 20+% plus VAT. But NEVER forget that it's your cottage. So if you want to stay there for a peak week, you should do just that.

OK, you need to work with the agency in order to get the enquiries/bookings, but at the end of the day it is your cottage and without cottages like yours the agency wouldn't have a business. And if peak weeks are SO important to them (in order to meet their commitment to you of so many weeks bookings per year), I would be suspicious. Anyone can fill the school holiday weeks in Cornwall or Devon or the Lake District, etc. It's the rest of the year, you may need some help.

If you are able to do the bookings yourself, it's great fun and very rewarding when you do get bookings. And even more so when you get to the stage of getting repeat bookings. But it does take time and effort. And you will need some listing sites to help you. I would recommend two:

www.cottageguide.co.uk
www.lovetoescape.com

We've been with cottageguide for about 7 years and they are excellent - and the price goes down after the first year!

I know one of the guys behind lovetoescape so I am declaring a vested interest, but we are on their site and get some very good enquiries/bookings. The lovetoescape guys have got their own holiday cottages so they have some real passion and commitment.

And, finally .... and this is one of my hobby horses .....think long and hard about the cost of membership of the tourist board and the cost of being inspected. Make sure those extra costs are going to result in lots of extra bookings.

Anyway, hope it goes really well for you.

[Kat]

I too have a cottage in Devon near to the Model Village in Babbacombe/St Marychurch, Torquay. For the past 10 years it has been let on a permanent basis but I am now thinking of making it into a holiday cottage. It has two large bedrooms. I am getting about 7000 GBP a year on a permanent let. If I took into account the cost of furnishing it and updating the kitchen what kind of annual return would I be looking at. In other words is it worth the hassle.

[Nightowl]

What is the main [enquirer] market for the cottageguide? My place is in London and generally appeals therefore mainly to the European market so I need to know that any site I use will generate enquiries from Europe. Are your enquiries mainly from the UK from people looking for a 'staycation' or does you get enquiries from overseas?

Lovetoescape doesn't list London as a search area anyway, so that one is definitely out for me.
[Sorry, this question is a little 'off thread]

[greenbarn]

Visit Britain and their ratings have popped up in a couple of threads, but I'll briefly restate our thoughts/experiences.

First off, have a look at the detailed standards doc here . It's lengthy, some of it is arcane, some of it is useful, and I believe the whole lot is due for reappraisal by VB, or QIT, or somebody, soon.

We underwent the process just under a year ago; we thought it would give a useful benchmark in our first year of getting established, and we make big on our marketing that we're Four Star Gold Award. It should help set us apart, although I know of local owners who have long since ditched VB, but who still claim 4 star rating for places that have slipped well below.

If you think you're likely to be 3 star or under, don't bother. You could have a fantastic place that doesn't meet certain criteria, but a lot of punters will dismiss anything at 3 star level, because of their perception of what it means. If you're aiming higher, it might be worth being able to tell people. Obviously there's nothing to stop you seeing how you get on with no rating and lots of good description and photos on your own website; you can always go to VB for a rating if you decide later. You may well find you can get a much cheaper assessment from the local Tourist Board, which would show that you meet minimum standards including safety.

We've had no webclicks or enquiries via VB or EnjoyEngland in a year; others seem to have similar experiences, and as you've discovered, google searches don't hit their site. It would be unfair of me to suggest that they don't believe they need to worry as everybody must obviously go to their website first anyway....

As the national Tourist Board, VB should be doing a lot for us. I have a bit of a grumpy attitude towards the fact that they want to charge us yet more for various additional schemes, and particularly their "accessibility" schemes, where if we pay them another wedge they'll actually tell people with disabilities about the suitability of our property. If we don't pay, disabled guests miss out. Nice.

Oh, and if after that lot you're wondering if we're going to renew our membership this year, yes we are, but I rather look forward to the day when Im brave enough to do without them!