Second home/holiday flat

[TeddyBee]

Finally got around to changing my password after the great Mumsnet hacking! I've been lurking like mad ever since mind you and half a mind to go post all over all the threads I had really good advice for but couldn't post on...

Anyway, I'm really interested in hearing about people's experiences with buying a second home. We've recently had an increase in income and my mind has been turning towards DH's lack of a pension. At the same time I've been visiting Folkestone quite a bit as various friends have moved out from London and I have been considering buying a 2 bed flat there. Mostly for us/friends/family to use, but I would also hope to airbnb it for some of the time. We could easily cover mortgage payments ourself, so wouldn't need the income to pay it, but some extra income to put into a renovation fund/sink fund for the flat would be reassuring. We're already overpaying quite a bit on our current mortgage to reduce the term, but we're pretty bad at saving money, and I feel like an investment in property would be a better provision for DH's retirement than paying into a pension fund (not least because he's over forty).

If anyone has done similar I'd love to hear about it, any pitfalls, how you handled the mortgage arrangements, deposit, any advice etc etc I'm viewing a place on Saturday which has been on the market for a fair old while (so I expect there's something horribly wrong with it), but I'm really keen so probably need to be brought down to earth a bit!

Currently the thinking is that we would find a cleaner who was happy to do ad hoc cleanings before/after bookings and organise maintenance ourselves. I'll look into home cover as well - normally I don't bother with that as I can fix pretty much anything that doesn't require a gas safe certificate, but I think it will be worth it for any on the spot repairs that might arise from AirBnB. Will see what the possibility of installing a key safe is, but otherwise will see if any of the people I know who live there are interested in acting as a sort of agent. They're all creative self-employed types, so not impossible they'd be interested in a bit of extra cash. I think we'd also not be letting it as regularly as 'proper' holiday cottages, so ad hoc arrangements better than agency. My brother in law has run various places through AirBnB for the last few years, and even though his have generally been closer, we've an idea of what tends to come up as a problem. The big thing always seems to be people not knowing how to use the shower to be honest and memorably in one place, the shower pump exploding. How we laughed. We did not laugh.

If it was more of a holiday destination (or Edinburgh, London or Dublin for Airsorted) I'd use an agency, but really we'd only be looking at a few bookings throughout the year.

beware stamp duty. we've just paid £12k on a £340k house as it's a second property. you get it back if you sell one property within 3 years, but we definitely had to factor it into our budget.