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.
I have a confession to make. There is a type of property location that is close to my heart – and my wallet – and that iscoastal property .
I believe that property close to beaches and/or with sea views will always be priced at a premium and will become an increasingly rare commodity. Which is always great for investors.
This is for a number of reasons.
Coastal property is in high demand from people retiring to live by the sea due to the many health benefits of coastal living. Retire-ees have often sold up a larger propety and are down-sizing, so regularly buy in cash. This means the finance market (and lack of mortgages) does not affect their buying power.
The coast also attracts wealthy second home owners, who want a weekend get-away for their exclusive use. At WhiteSand in Camber, Rye, E. Sussex , where we have our holiday let, “SeaBreeze“, one third of the properties in the development were bought for cash by wealthy Londoners. These wealthy owners are unlikely to become desperate to sell and subsequently down-value the whole development by selling 40% below market value, as is happening in the North. This means that coastal property benefits from robust intrinsic value.
Many people choose to live close to the sea for lifestyle reasons, creating additional demand which is likely to increase.
With the advent of the internet, and more and more people working from home, we are no longer tied to city centres and the daily grind of the commute. The Halifax survey last year revealed that 80% of towns enjoying mass inward migration were coastal towns. (Whereas, mass outward migration was recorded from city centres, the highest being from Birmingham). This new trend again ensures that coastal property prices will continue to remain intrinsically strong, safe, predictable, and robust.
From an investors point of view, coastal property is perfect for holiday lets and can be an attractive addition to a portfolio to diversify and spread risk. (Be sure to check for flood risk and coastal erosion as part of your due diligence though!).
In a recent survey, 52% of respondents stated “being close to a great beach” as their number one priority when choosing where to stay.
Holiday lets benefit from a global market place, which you can access via the web or such portals asPureHolidayHomes.com.
Holiday lets are very flexible and can be rented on a weekend basis, weekly basis, and also normal AST during “low season”. They have a wide appeal including families, couples, singles, wedding guests, special occasion guests, pet owners, and people looking for a retreat.
I suspect that the rising cost of fuel and economic austerity has encouraged people to holiday closer to home, providing a great opportunity for coastal holiday lets situated in reasonable proximity to major cities. See: Fuel prices impacting on holiday lets.
Our holiday let on the South Coast (1.5 hours from London) has been fully booked from mid-May to mid-September. Christmas/New Year is booked and I have a few long weekend breaks booked in from mid October to mid December. That is a significant increase from last year, and we have also increased our high season weekly rate by £100.00 per week.
This is a topic I also talk about in my blog about “engaging anticipation happiness” in your property marketing – which is super-important when it comes to holiday lets because recent recent showed:
“… When doing a study of vacationers, the happiest people were the ones in the weeks leading up to a vacation. It was all about anticipation. Again, it looks like our brain rewards us more for working toward a goal than for actually arriving there. The study actually suggests taking more frequent, shorter vacations. You know, so you can spend more time anticipating them”.
In this interview with Phil Agius from PureHolidayHome.com , he talks about the “rise of the staycation”.
A holiday let is not just for summer, either.
A bracing walk along the beach on a winter’s morning can be extremely rejuvenating! There are also many sporting activities, like kite buggying and kite surfing, that are best enjoyed over the Autumn and Winter months, providing a ready stream of guests for your beach-side holiday let.
There is nothing more relaxing than returning to a warm and cosy cottage after a bracing walk along the beach or coastal path and Christmas and New Year are popular times to rent a holiday cottage, ensuring premium rates.
Researchers have discovered that the sound of waves actually alters the wave patterns in the brain, soothing you into a deeply calm and relaxed state.
Communing with nature in this way provides a welcome relief from stress, anxiety, and tension which is what a good holiday is all about!
And of course, you, your family, and friends can enjoy these benefits when your property is not let out to guests, adding another dimension to your lifestyle!
If you are not already investing in coastal property, why not treat yourself to a day out at the British seaside and remind yourself of all it has to offer? If you love it as much as I do, you can share that passion with your holiday rental guests, ensuring that they have a memorable and relaxing stay at your property.
Repeat bookings are an important part of holiday let occupancy, and after a couple of years of gaining traction in the market place, any up-market holiday let will start to benefit from these. We have one guest who comes down and stays at our house for one weekend, every two months!
I am really a huge fan of holiday lets, so if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch or join theHoliday Lets Tribe on Property Tribes forum, where I share all my latest news and views on holiday letting.
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. They also created Property Tribes Trading Post as a place where property people can trade and list products and services for the Landlord community.
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.
Vanessa is ranked by WeFollow as the 11th most influential person in U.K. property on Twitter.
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On the 11th February 2012, I had the pleasure of attending the HomeAway Owner Summit 2012 at Twickenham Rugby Club Conference Centre.
Around 200 committed holiday let owners turned out on a very cold day to up-date their knowledge, network, and discuss holiday lettings. I was hugely impressed by the quality of knowledge in the room and the level of information shared by HomeAway.
I think the event demonstrated tremendous “caring credentials” on the part of HomeAway. I genuinely got the impression that they value their holiday let Landlords and want to engage with them, and learn from them, as well as helping them get the most out of the HomeAway networks. The passion of the HomeAway team came across in the many seminars and discussion groups held throughout the day.
I was there as a holiday let owner, a panellist on the Social Media panel, and also to produce a highlights report and a number of interviews for the HomeAway video channel.
The highlights report gives a flavour of the day and some of the key areas that were discussed:
I was delighted to be able to interview Christine Karpinski for Property Tribes TV, who is often referred to as “the most respected voice in the vacation rental industry”. She has written two books about optimising holiday lets, and speaks at events all over the world about her holiday lets journey, which started in 1994.
Judith Abraham is another lady who is passionate about holiday lets, and has had a lot of success with her “LuxPod” brand of high-end holiday apartments.
Everyone I spoke to was very optimistic about the holiday lets industry and believed it has many more years of growth ahead.
I really enjoyed and valued meeting holiday let owners with properties in many far flung corners of the world and I am already looking forwards to next year’s event!
Vanessa Warwick is a former TV presenter, turned professional residential Landlord, 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.
