Buying a caravan

[mlj123]

Hi all

I am just after some advice really. I have been thinking about wanting to buy a caravan for sometime. I Would be looking at buying one on a holiday park somewhere in the uk. I just wanted to find out if it would be a good idea or not. I would mainly hope to get a good rental income from it, although I might want to use it now and then, the main purpose would be for rental. My partners job isn't very secure right now so I'm not sure if this could be a good investment to help generate income if the worst happened or quite the opposite. So my main questions are:
Can I make a good income from this investment?
Which holiday park would be the best/ most profitable ones to look at?
Which area of the uk is best?
When is the best time to buy?

We have a 15 year old static, but it's on a farmers site, not one of the large commercial ones. We have no entertainment or playground etc. It still costs over 2000 a year in site fees. We dont rent it out its our escape hole. We love it. Never expected to make money. We did our research first.

There are 2 options to trying to make money. Let the campsite market it for you. They will take a massive cut and once you have told the campsite the dates that they can market it you entertainment be able to use it, even if it is empty. (I have friends who were charged for using their own caravan as it denied the site from being able to use it)

The other option is to market it yourself. My friend does this, she is fully booked up for summer. However she has put an awful lot of effort into constantly advertising and promoting it on social media. It is in perfect condition, she doesn't leave any of her family's personal possessions there. She goes to it twice a week to clean it before new occupants.

If you want to make money you really need to think about the cleaning. The site will charge you a fortune

We choose how many weeks to rent for. We have no desire to be there in school holidays at the moment, so rent for peak weeks. Outside that we come and go as we choose with access to all facilities (which we don’t often use), it includes 40% discount on food and drink. It’s not haute cuisine, but you can arrive late and get two hot pub-type meals and a drink for under £20.
Each week sells for about £2.5k so over the season we get around £30k in rental, but there are costs against this. Cleaning and laundry is £70 per week it’s used. Site fees are currently low because of Covid limitations, so we paid £1.5k last year because most facilities were closed (it was lovely and quiet then).
The lodge does depreciate but should last a good 12 years - the site tells us 15-20, but that's probably spin. So at current prices we’ll have received about £350k in rental fees which covers all purchase costs and fees plus a bit more to put towards a new lodge particularly with resale of the old lodge. We have the site on a 40 year lease, but can sell.
If you pay upfront it’s obviously much better financially. Borrowing to purchase will increase costs hugely. Over letting is likely to see greater wear and tear, so we limit it to minimum number of weeks. Damage items need to be replaced, but we’ve not suffered from that really. There is insurance against damage, so things get replaced.

We have an outside store for some personal items such as beach tent and chairs. Some personal items we leave to help protect the lodge - outside table and chairs to reduce risk of people moving dining chairs outside, a cordless Hoover, good quality mattress protectors, additional doormats at all entrances, a rotary drier and hole for spike to reduce wet clothing inside causing condensation. We leave a hairdryer, ironing board and Nespresso too. Nothing has ever been damaged.

We also have underbed storage for our own bedding and towels packed into vacuum bags.