Occupancy rates UK south coast

[alex_bisgrove]

I know this is the $million question, but I'm looking to buy a holiday let in Bournemouth so any help the forum can offer is most welcome. It is right in the centre 200m from the beach, 2 bed with parking. The estate agent tells me it will be 100%let through August and over the 26 month summer 80% letting is perfectly reasonable if I use an agent. He would say this as he is trying to sell the property. For anyone with properties on the south coast, what sort or occupancy do you see ?

[Paul Carmel]

Hi Alex, and welcome to LMH!

I would have a look around on some of the many listing sites and see what you nearest competitors are getting. I would not believe a agent who was trying to sell me the property.

[Margaret]

Hi Alex

Have you tried your local Tourist Board? In my experience, their figures are wildly optimistic but it would at least give you a ceiling to work down from.

[Martha]

Hi Alex,
I'd look for similar properties and check their occupancy rate.
What does he mean by 26 month summer?

[Tizfata]

Hi Alex,
I'd look for similar properties and check their occupancy rate.
What does he mean by 26 month summer?

Could it be 26 weeks (all summer + half spring + half autumn)?

[alex_bisgrove]

thanks everyone for some great direction and understanding my poor typing skills, (26 month season is actually 26 week season )
In terms of looking at any competition, I could find only one website that allowed me to look at historic booking and so see (at least for this year) what actual occupancy was like, and I was surprise to be able to do that (not a good feature for those that use the site to let their propoerties to my mind).

As a number of you have said look at the competiton is this what you meant or have I missed something. when I look at next year there is (as expected) hardly any occupancy anyway, so I scratching my head to understand how I can use this data.

[Tizfata]

I guess the suggestion referred to the price range. For the occupancy... Difficult to tell... Maybe the Tourist Board knows something, because (but I am in Italian living in Italy under Italian law) maybe as a renter you have to notify them if you have guests (when and their number) and they have to count them.
The TB here knows where my guests come from and how long they stay.

[Nightowl]

I would think even 26 weeks is probably optimistic. I reckon summer is pretty well likely to be booked up - but that would account for maybe 8 weeks. It depends also if you are prepared to do short stays - out of season people just might want weekend breaks.

We started our London lets intending to only do full weeks, but with any arrival day of the week. We quickly realised that a big portion of our market was shorter stays - so we started offering from 4 night upwards, but now I even take 3 nights. A lot of our short lets start mid week but most are weekends.

We are booked virtually all year round because London is a top tourist destination and there might even be less competition here than in Bournemouth - London doesn't appear to be heaving with holiday lets!

Quiet periods are now - November to Feb. I think we are pretty heavily booked and before I actually did an accurate count, I'd have thought we were maybe 75% booked. But when I actually had a proper look at actual number of days booked, from Nov 2008 - Nov 2009 we had 209 nights booked in one property and 220 in the other - which is about 57% occupancy.

It also depends if you would be relying on it to pay its way or not. Figures worked out on 80% occupancy are very different from those on 50% or so. For us 50% makes us a reasonable profit because in London we charge an average of 750 euro or so per week. So what you could reasonably charge peak season and shoulder season need to be considered.

I'm not trying to throw cold water on your dreams, just trying to offer you a realistic view of how it's been for another UK renter in an area which I'd consider to be pretty easy to let a decent property in.

Hope this helps.