Holiday rentals company HomeAway.co.uk announces sponsorship of “Holiday Lets Tribe” on Property Tribes.

HomeAway.co.uk and Property Tribes are pleased to announce a new sponsorship where HomeAway.co.uk will be “powering” the holiday let discussions on Property Tribes, the U.K.’s busiest landlord and investor on-line community.

At the time of writing, the category has 144 threads and 1, 048 posts and is ranked by Alexa at 2,836 (busiest website in the U.K).

HomeAway.co.uk will be contributing content and discussions to the category, to help holiday let owners achieve higher occupancy, reduce risks, and assist owners in exceeding guest’s expectations.

Erica Chang, Regional Director of HomeAway UK commented: “Demand for holiday rentals has grown significantly over the last few years, as holidaymakers search for new, more cost effective accommodation options. There has never been a better time for owners to invest in a holiday home, so with this sponsorship we hope more owners will realise this potential”.

Vanessa Warwick, co-founder of Property Tribes commented: “Owning high yielding holiday lets myself, this is a particular passion of mine, and I am delighted that HomeAway.co.uk are going to be powering discussions and helping us ramp up the activity in this category.

Holiday lets are one of the growth areas of U.K. property investment, with many people combining property as a safe haven for their savings with the desire to own a second home that they may use themselves from time to time.

With the resurgence in interest of the “great British seaside holiday” and the rise of the “stay-cation”, there has never been a better time to own a holiday let in the U.K and Property Tribes & HomeAway.co.uk will be leading the way in information, education, & strategies to help holiday let owners thrive”.

About HomeAway.co.uk
Founded in 1996 and part of HomeAway Inc., HomeAway.co.uk is the UK’s number one holiday rentals website, listing over 545,000 self-catering properties worldwide. The site provides a simple, cost-effective way for holiday home owners and managers to market their property and manage bookings, with unrivalled worldwide exposure for a fixed annual fee. For holidaymakers, HomeAway.co.uk offers the best choice of any UK website.

Use the HomeAway calculator to see how much your property can get as a holiday let.

When the British summer doesn’t materialise, it sorts the (holiday let) men from the boys.

There’s a joke doing the rounds at the moment.

In the Bible, 40 days of rain was considered a disaster.  In the U.K., we have 40 days of rain, and it’s considered summer!

This year, more so than ever, as we are experiencing one of the worst summer’s on record with rainfalls of Biblical proportions, along with flooding, and storms.

But, whatever the British weather throws at us, us Brits seem to take it in our stride and it cannot dampen our enthusiasm for two weeks by the sea in a pretty cottage with roses round the door.   It’s actually ingrained in our culture.

As this blog:  The British and the weather: a match made in Heaven muses:

We Brits have a strange relationship with the weather. Some would even call it intimate. We are obsessed by it. It occupies our thoughts daily. The weather forecasts on TV are among the most watched of programmes. When we have nothing to talk about, we talk about the weather. When we do have something to talk about, we still talk about the weather.

I guess that the reason for this national obsession is that the weather here is so interesting. It’s not exactly dangerous – I mean, we don’t get tornadoes or hurricanes or droughts – but it is varied and unpredictable. We can happily complain about the rain or the cold or the heat or the snow, while knowing that actually, it’s never going to be so extreme that we have to worry about it.

Conversely, at the slightest ray of sun, the shorts and bar-be-ques come out, bra straps are pushed down, pasty white legs are revealed, and sun tan lotion is scorned in favour of that “just burnt” look.

So, when it comes to U.K. holiday lets, a long, hot summer would be wonderful, but, even with this shockingly bad weather, they still perform surprisingly well and I firmly believe that they are still a growth area of investment.

The only difference that bad weather makes is that I find guests are more likely to make complaints, probably because they are disappointed and want to blame something or someone.

On the other hand, certain properties receive their best testimonials and reviews when the climate has put a dampener on festivities. Those that have big libraries of books, videos, DVDs, PlayStation & board games and have owners who care enough about their guests to make the rainy day experience a great one, come in for high acclaim.

With holiday lets, I believe that we have to adopt the mindset of a hotelier.  With long term lets, you’re catering to the part of the brain that deals with practicalities that have to be done.   With holiday lets, you’re dealing with the part of the brain that has a “want”.

So, when you are marketing a holiday let, you’re marketing to desire.  Therefore, how people relate to inputs for holidays is somewhat different to how they find somewhere to live in my opinion.

In our holiday lets marketing, we have to appeal to the phenomenon known as “anticipation happiness“.

That means appealing to the needs & desires of our guests during their two weeks annual holiday (or long weekend break) that they generally look forward to and anticipate for quite a lengthy period of time.

It means we have to exceed expectations, think of every last detail, create happy memories, give value, and ensure that the weather cannot spoil our guest’s stay at our cottage.

The holiday lets marketplace is crowded and it is competitive.  But competition is healthy.  It weeds out those owners that don’t go the extra mile.  It helps set and maintain standards.  It rewards those who value their guests.

I generally believe it takes a holiday cottage 2/3 years to get traction in the marketplace.  After that, the majority of bookings will come from repeat visitors and word of mouth … but only to those who provide a great experience.

It is for this reason that I am so proud of the Holiday Lets Tribe on Property Tribes.  It is chock-full of detailed information on how to make your holiday cottage stand out from the crowd, how to maximise occupancy, how to “delight” your guests.

Here are some of my favourite discussions:

How I secured 52 weeks bookings for my holiday let in 2011

“Purple cows” for holiday lets …

Photographing holiday lets – how to do it really well …

Twelve golden rules for holiday lets in 2012 inspired by @HomeAwayUK

Can you “create” demand? + lateral due diligence research …. Think outside the box!

Miaow … !! Creative holiday lets marketing …

PT TV – @holidaylettings Strategies for increasing occupancy in holiday lets …

and much more.
(more…)

I love sharing good news!  Especially when it involves a tax rebate! 

I therefore wanted to draw your attention to this interview with Mayfair accountant, Amit Prasanna, who talks about a short window of opportunity (until 31st Jan 2012) for people with furnished E.U. or U.K. holiday lets to reclaim a potentially substantial tax rebate.

The interview was recorded at the Property Investor Show on the 12th October 2011.  However, we waited until Amit had undertaken the work for us and got us the rebate, before posting the video and making this public knowledge.

We can now confirm we are receiving a significant tax rebate.

Amit is offering Property Tribes members a no obligation chat to see if your holiday lets and tax position qualify for this rebate.

He then works on a no win/no fee type structure, in the respect that he only takes a percentage commission from any tax monies he gets refunded to you.

You can email Amit on a.prasanna@gp-ca.com.

I hope you find this information helpful.

You can join the related discussion on Property Tribes >>> here.

Happy Landlording!

Vanessa Warwick
Follow me on Twitter:  @4_walls

Vanessa Warwick is a former TV presenter, turned professional Landlady, consultant, and speaker. Along with her husband Nick Tadd, she founded Property Tribes, which is now the U.K.’s busiest on-line Landlord and investor community. Nick and Vanessa have just launched their new tech product, Yulpa, an on-line “property office/filo-fax” that helps you organise and manage your entire property life in one place. It comes with an iPhone app that does auto due diligence on any property being considered for purchase.

Vanessa and Nick advocate the use of technology and digital and social communications in property, and speak at events all over the U.K. as well as consulting for the BBC on property. They invest mainly in flats London and family houses in the South East and are also big advocates of holiday lets, having two upmarket holiday lets on the South Coast that achieve above-average occupancy thanks to the couple’s web efforts and vertical marketing strategies.