We have a house that we were renting out but now afetr many issues with that we have decided to just have it for holiday bookings – just not sure how to go about it. Do we contact council and set up web sites and advertise and so on and reigister with the department of fair trading and so on. Any advise would be really great.
Hi. We have a house in a holiday location and currently have it rented permanently, but would consider doing what you are contemplating in the future, so we can use it some of the time. When I discussed the idea with the local agent they stressed the need to have it well appointed with furniture and fittings, but I assume it all depends on the market you wish to attract.
If you use the local real estate agencies, they will manage bookings for you, but take quite a high percentage of the rent (25%?) We know people who set up a website to manage the whole thing themselves, which I understand is now quite successful. I think the key was to have it linked in to other services in the area, so people find it easily when searching the net.
I don't know whether it has to involve the council, but as far as claiming the expenses, I have been told that you can claim the property expenses for the period it is available for rent. Therefore so long as it is advertised as available, it can be negatively geared, etc. I guess a primary consideration is whether you live near enough to administer the management.
Let us know how you go, it would be interesting to hear.
G
Hi,
We have a holiday house and have it posted on stayz.com.au and takeabreak.com.au. both these sites have high visits and they take about 8% of bookings through the sites (so you can still have your own bookings). ohh they also have a yearly fee of about $100 (my wife does all the fine details). IMHO well worth it!
Cheers,
Invest2surf
Hey chellie,
I'm actually a property manager at Rainbow Beach in QLD and holiday letting is about 80% of my day.
We take 12% +GST but you must also consider that after every stay the cleaners go through (avg $85 per house) and you will also be running water and power all the time so your holding costs do increase. Having said that the properties almost always net more than in the permanent let pool and like Invest2surf said you can also take bookings yourself and some of my owners do that as well.
Hope that helps a little bit, afraid I don't have enough time to give you the full spiel! :-o
Cheers,
Andy
The house over the road from us is a holiday rental. The owners started out using a booking agent and web site for first couple of years and then nearly all the visitors were repeat customers who direct booked, so they ended up dropping out of the agent and booking services as they ended up with more than they could let to through these return customers and the word of mouth from them.
http://www.stayz.com.au is where a lot of this is advertised.
I am of the stayz brand. I use stayz for my holiday house leasing. I also have a website that advertises. My experience is that you eventually have regular holiday makers each year at the same period go through your property and can eventually go without the stayz option. I also enjoy the opportunity of talking to the people that go through my property. i.e. I have meet many wonderful families and have also stopped what would otherwise have been a train wreck…….
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