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Why the Silver Coast of Portugal is a great place to invest in 2011
There are so many reasons why the Silver Coast is a great place to buy an investment property. We’ve owned properties there now for 4 years and the demand for our holiday properties has increased massively over that time. When we first advertised there were only 11 competing properties that we could find on the web. Now (2011) there are over 200 and we are still experiencing more demand than we can satisfy over the summer period. We have added 25 properties to our Silver Coast property portfolio from investor owners (and our own properties) in the past 2 years. To see the portfolio visit http://www.rental-retreats.co.uk/rental-properties Our own holiday apartments are by the beach in Sao Martinho Do Porto and Nazare on the Silver Coast. That’s just an hour drive away from … Read entire article »
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Holiday Information Pack Template
This is an example Holiday Information Pack template. We hope it’s helpful. Please let us know if you have any other thoughts on what would be useful to include in an information pack for guests of your holiday home. Important Holiday Information <<Name of property, location, country>> Please print and take with you YOUR ARRIVAL We hope you are looking forward to your holiday booked with us. We hope you have a lovely time. Please print this document as it contains important information about your holiday. The person that manages the holiday property <<name of property>> is <<name of local management company and name of person>> . Their mobile and other numbers are: <<name>> <<mobile and landline>> <<name>> <<mobile and landline>> Their email address is: … Read entire article »
Flexible living layout in your holiday home
Arranging your holiday home flexibly is really important to secure the most possible bookings for your home when you’re not in it. And it isn’t hard either. Here are a few tips: Sofa bed! Even if you’ve decided to cap the number of guests in your home you should still think about getting a sofa bed. That way when brother and sister refuse to share the same twin room your guests have the option to let them fight out the room or the lounge. There are plenty of examples we’ve seen where the guests would prefer to split out to sleep in individual rooms, such as a group of friends for example. A sofa bed doesn’t cost … Read entire article »
Holiday homes affected by new government tax proposals
You might have read about this already on the BBC News Channel. And if you have you might be a little worried right now as we creep closer to April. But don’t panic! As we understand it with the proposed changes you can still receive the tax benefits you currently enjoy but you might need to let your property to the public for longer. According to the news article currently your must property must be available to let for 140 days and you should provide proof that the property has been let for 70 days per year to qualify for better tax benefits. However if the government go ahead with its consultation (written 2010) then holiday home owners … Read entire article »
Confirming a Booking for your Holiday Home (Part 1)
So you’ve just received an email saying your guests would like to book your holiday rental home. Now what? Well here’s what we do if it helps. Sometimes there can be a little language barrier to overcome with bookings which is worth noting. If you’ve received an email out of the blue requesting to book your holiday home we would recommend you reply to double check that they would like to go ahead with the booking. In this email you should mention the dates, the total price, and a link back to the property on the website from which they enquired. We would also double check how many people they intend to stay at the property and check on any … Read entire article »
Top Tips: Shopping for a robust holiday home
How do you keep your holiday home robust enough for your guests? The truth that we came to realise quite early on is that some guests that won’t treat your home as you would. The trick is to recognise this, make your peace with it, and set up your home appropriately. It doesn’t meaning buying cheap things as this will generally only go against you. Cheap furniture, utensils and linen probably won’t stand the test of time given the use and abuse it might endure and what’s worse is that you won’t know about it until you go to use the property yourself. By which time you may have already disappointed guests in between. Also your guests … Read entire article »
Should I ask for a security deposit from my holiday home guests?
This is an interesting one. Personally with our apartments in Portugal we don’t ask for a security deposit unless perhaps we agree on a rental over the New Year period. However we also rent out holiday places for other owners and some like us to request a small deposit on their behalf which of course we do oblige. There are a fair few reasons why we don’t see the value in security deposits personally so I’m sharing those with you below. 1) Admin and cost! To take a security deposit you’ve either got to ask for it as cash on arrival, keep it safe, and then return it on the final day (which is perhaps … Read entire article »
As promised – our suggested holiday home inventory.
Ideal furnishings/equipment for your holiday home. Based on a two bedroom apartment – sleeps 6/7 Shopping for your holiday home should be strategic – avoiding going backwards and forwards to the local supermarket or department store! If you can buy it in all one place then you’ll find it less painful I promise. If your holiday property is abroad you may still want to consider buying everything in your home country and shipping it – just because you know where to get things! Don’t underestimate the time saving this will bring you – and possibly a cost saving too! I hope you find this list useful. If you can think of anything I should add just let me … Read entire article »
How much effort and cost is it to furnish and equip my holiday home?
Truthfully in our experience it’s a bigger job that we imagined. Taking my husband two full weeks and costing around £15,000 for everything we needed for each apartment we own. Because it’s difficult sometimes to know where to get things from (especially if your property is abroad) it’s sometimes better to collect everything at home and then ship it in one lump. We chose that route in some cases for our holiday properties in Portugal – working out more expensive overall but less running about for us.The shipping cost for 15 square metres was about £1500 door to door. Get in touch if you want us to dig out the details of the transport company we used. Even minor … Read entire article »
Top Tips: How to market your holiday home without an estate agent.
Embrace online marketing You’ll need time to do this but you can do it from the comfort of your own home if you already have some great photos a computer and internet access! Register with holiday rental sites Get your home onto 2 or 3 holiday rental sites. We recommend holiday rentals.co.uk, holiday lettings.co.uk. If you have more than one holiday home then ask them for a deal! This will cost you about £300-£400 per year. Chose which ones you advertise on based on how they do when you search on Google for properties to rent in your area – plus consider how many similar properties look to be booking up well on this site. Some offer a … Read entire article »