To ask you how you go about choosing a holiday cottage?

[Movinghouseatlast]

My disclaimer is that I am setting one up! It is an annexe attached to my house.

There seems to be so much choice of area I don't know how anyone makes a decision!

So do you pick a general area, or a specific place? Eg Cornwall, or a specific village.

In terms of cottage companies, do you stick with one and look at every suitable property? Or look at loads of companies?

Is price most important? Or a view? Or the interior?

Mine is very high end (luxury dare I say) inside, big log burner, massive furnished terrace but we don't have a sea view. Next door has a sea view, but is very basic (but lovely) inside. We are more expensive as I have compared our house with nearby ones with similar interiors and facilities.

Is it important to you to be able to walk to a village/pub/beach? You can from ours, but some of the most popular cottages in my area are a drive from anywhere at all. Yet they are expensive and booked all year round- and don't have additional facilities to mine.

I am.just trying to get my head round it all. I want to get my pricing right and give people a fab experience.

Thanks.

I wouldn't book through the big sites- there are several Facebook pages where owners advertise such as "Book your holiday Direct with the owner " where you post your requirements and owners reply.
I also like Holiday France Direct- no extra fees and 20% off Ferries.

We want parking, washing machine and decent heating/hot water sýstem that we can control ourselves. Oh wifi too

We like an owner who is responsive if there is a problem but if they live next door/attached we prefer that they are not in our faces every time we set foot outside or return from being out. In return we won't be pestering them unless there's a real problem.

Not too many instructions - e.g. don't advertise a tumble dryer and then put Not as up requesting that we don't use it!!

(Yes I am that person who has to do laundry on holiday)

*notices

I'm amazed at the number of people who want a washing machine. I don't think I've ever washed on holiday. I'm on holiday... Even when the kids were young, the most I did was hand wash the odd thing if it was more than just a normal wear, dirty...

I like a washing machine and dryer, it’s no effort to do a load and it reduces the amount that needs doing when we get home.

I used to work for Hoseasons Cottages and now run my own successful cottages. It all depends where you are. The less appealing area you live, the more ‘ticks’ you need to get in the searches. People will search specific areas, like Cotswolds, North Norfolk etc. Location is usually key in these destination hot spots. Otherwise you just need to check as many boxes as you can. The top searches for Wyndham, who own Hoseasons, Country Cottages, Cottgaes 4 u, Cottages.com etc are as follows: Off street parking, enclosed patio/garden safe for dogs/kids, walking distance to pub, writhin 5miles of beach, hot tub and the biggest draw.... Hot tub. Legislation is changing around hot tubs, and while it will increase bookings by 30-40% especially in the winter when bookings are less, if you’re in an area where you can get bookings without one I wouldn’t bother. But if you’re strugglimg for bookings, it will definitely increase them. The other one guaranteed to increase bookings by a simila figure is being dog friendly. Other than this, simply search using a large company and try and be objective... what would you book and why? Somethings you can change and somethings you can’t (like being an annex ather than detached). Going with an agent can be good to get things going, and if you’re in a popular tourist area you may find a small company that won’t take s much commission, and may give extra service, like concierege. You will lose 20-30% of your takings to an agent. But they do a fair amount of work for that fee and should deal with all the annoying enquiries.... which if you let a good season, you will have your fair share of. But in reality, once you go it alone you can take up to a third less bookings and still make the same money. A good group for advice is the Holiday Rental Owners Network on FB. Good luck!

I don't use a washing machine on holiday, but you've all got me thinking now.
If there was a machine with a tumble drier (which I don't have at home), I could do the washing on the last day, get it all dried, and I wouldn't have to do it on our return...

I wash everything and tumble dry it the day/ night before we leave, so it just needs ironing and putting away when we get back.
It's hardly any effort so not exactly 'doing the washing'. I hated having a week's washing to do when I got home.

It would not cross my mind to look for a hot tub and probably would not choose a cottage with one. I wouldn’t want to pay for something which presumably has a significant cost in maintenance that I wouldn’t use.

I look for:
Fire risk assessment
Gas safety certificate
Independent rating/inspection
good clear pictures not naff ones of wine glasses and cushions
honest descriptions
easy ways to pay

You need to consider if you want to be dog friendly, child friendly, accessible (for people with disabilities)

Me neither chemenger I wouldn't want a hot tub.

We stayed somewhere with a pool table and sauna, that was quite good but didn't choose it because of them.

Guests must walk in as if there's been no one in before. And are not expected to hoover and strip beds or even empty the fridge when they leave.
I have a holiday let and this I s my baseline. They're on holiday.
For your convenience - keep nicknknacks to a minimum.
A supply of DVDs and good books and games is nice.
I use a linen service because they do a better job than I can.
Ummmm.....

I tend to start looking based on a general area we want to visit then narrow it down by what offers the best facilities for our budget. We also check reviews if available.

However, if we've been somewhere that particularly impressed us we will go back again and will also recommend it to friends and family who we know also use holiday cottages, and will also leave a review. It's usually the little touches that push a cottage experience from being fine to being something we want to tell people about. For example- a cottage attached to the owners home where we were invited to use a large chest freezer in an outbuilding (very useful for cool packs etc) and also use the outbuilding to store DCs buggy, a cottage with a toybox stocked with a small selection of clean toddler toys and books, a few cottages with selection of books and dvds, a couple of cottages where the owners left a 'welcome pack' with tea/coffee/milk in the fridge/loaf of bread/butter, one cottage left us the makings of a cream tea in the fridge.

I'm amazed at the number of people who want a washing machine. I don't think I've ever washed on holiday. I'm on holiday... Even when the kids were young, the most I did was hand wash the odd thing if it was more than just a normal wear, dirty...

I wouldn't take a place with no washing machine and dryer or a launderette on sight. Absolutely hate doing laundry when I get home.

We love a hot tub, too, particularly on non-Summer breaks.

Don't want a place that takes dogs or pets.

A lot of overseas visitors are on tours. A different country every week. Three night stays max anywhere. So they have a lot of washing to keep up with. It is fascinating the countries they hail from and the places they have been are going to on these tours.

I would be wary of a property with owners next door, but if you had photos that clearly showed the layout and had written something like 'we understand how much guests value privacy on holiday and will happily leave you to enjoy yourselves- but we are well placed to sort out any problems' I would probably book it anyway.

Can I please suggest that you go 'on holiday' in it first?! Sounds silly but I always think, if the owner just spent one night here, they would pick up all those annoying little things that put me off returning. For instance, no hook to hang a dressing gown, window that doesn't quite shut, boiler that gurgles loudly all night long, TV that can't be seen from half the seats in the living room.

I always tried to book with local agencies, more choice, less messing around when you are going through options, but I didn't manage it last summer, and ended up with Sykes, and they were actually really good. The description was really precise and the instructions and all were really good, I would use them again.

1st interior
2nd price
3rd location

I look at all different sites until I find something I like. We choose where we are going first then pick from there but will stay outside or further away from the place we plan to visit if I find something I like better on the outskirts.

Spare light-bulbs!

How do I choose a cottage? Location firstly - we generally know the area we'd like to visit, specifics don't matter so much.

Space - has to have enough bedrooms. We may only be 4 on holiday, but we like 3 bedrooms as we have 1x DS and 1xgrown up BIL, they shouldn't share. BIL would say (!) he'd like 2 of the bedrooms designed for adults, not an assumption that a holidaying family is one set of parents with all the rest being kids.

Photos - I don't want knick-knacks or tat. It gets dusty. It is always somebody else's taste but not mine. We always have to move it out of reach of DS. So I'm looking for clean (wooden) floors, clear surfaces, quite a bare appearance really.

Off-road parking by the house (not a mile down the road in a carpark) and an enclosed garden for safety.

Finally, I tend to gravitate away from cottage companies and AirBNB, and towards those who have their own website for their property. It costs pennies to have a website these days, but it demonstrates (to me) that you are genuinely in business. A website suggests ownership; it has contact details so that I can additional questions before I decide whether to book; I like to create that rapport with the owner even if I don't want to meet them when I arrive. It gives me a 'personal' contact.

I really appreciate pictures of the bedrooms or a floor plan so that I can work out whether there is a room where my kids can sleep, that has at least one and preferably two doors between them and the living room/kitchen, and that I don't have to walk through to get to the toilet. As a parent of twins I've really struggled to get a cottage with two cots available, back when they were little - since they're not that expensive, I always figured that would be a good way of getting all the twin toddler bookings (assuming that would be something you'd want!)

I'd favour a cottage that had a No dogs policy.

our kids make more mess than our dogs and our kids aren't especially messy/dirty, so you'd be missing out on some pretty great cottages!

I wouldn't stay anywhere that allowed pets either. Not because of mess and dirt as I would hope that would be cleaned between visitors but it's not possible to eliminate every dog hair or the doggy smell completely.

Website that enables you to check availability and book online directly. I hate having to send a message of enquiry/ make a phonecall. Ideally directly through the cottage rather than some generic booking site where I'm never quite sure whether my booking is actually guaranteed and the property owner has seen it.

Website that enables you to check availability and book online directly. I hate having to send a message of enquiry/ make a phonecall. Ideally directly through the cottage rather than some generic booking site where I'm never quite sure whether my booking is actually guaranteed and the property owner has seen it.

Even better is a listing on one of the major directory/listings site. That's where we usually start. But make sure you put in your full details. We always use the filter options to tick the boxes of things we want, like number of beds, wifi, washing machine, etc and only look at the ones with everything we need. There have been times when we've found ourselves looking at others and have been surprised that they've mentioned things like WIFI in the description but not actually "ticked the box" when they wrote the listing, so it doesn't come up when you filter out those without WIFI - must be a lot of owners missing out on rentals because they've not entered their property onto the listings website fully!