Holiday home owners

[BrokenBrit]

I had some inheritance recently and our original plan had been to keep it as savings, but then we saw our dream home and went to view it, but it quickly sold sadly.

So I am now speculating now on whether to get a holiday home somewhere we love going on holiday, and as a way of making a bit of income (my work has been badly affected by Covid).
My inheritance is just over 50k and I would be eligible for a buy to let mortgage and could afford a property around the 200k mark.

So I am after some advice from holiday home owners please.
Do you find it’s best to do the bookings yourselves or through an agent? Any recommendations?
Any regrets or are you pleased you did it?
Just looking for pros and cons and things to consider please.

Things to think about: if you're not renting it out all year round will it actually be profitable after you've taken into consideration all the outgoings (particularly tax, insurance, cleaning, maintenance etc). If you want to use it to holiday yourself are you content to go outside peak times (or lose a lot of your profit)? Is it somewhere that you can see yourself using for years and years (will DC get bored)? Personally we have a second home but choose not to rent it out. For us that decision was because we wanted to have it as 'our' space and do it up nicely knowing it wasn't going to be trashed, don't like the thought of strangers sleeping in our bed, want to be able to pop down if the weather's nice and not worry about it it's actually available.

I am not sure we should have bought a holiday home for several reasons.

Firstly can I say ours is a worth about 1/6 of our property portfolio. We also have substantial other investments so it’s absolutely not something we must make money on.

Location, location, location is key. It must be where people actually want to go. It must be appealing and fastidiously clean. We offer wi fi, several TVs, Bose sound system, comfortable beds and each bedroom has an enormous suite shower and the house has amazing sea views! It’s a lovely house.

We use an agent. It’s 4 hours from home. We have cleaning via them, advertising, booking and all changeovers. They deal with all issues whilst guests are there. It’s 20% of the rental. I’m certainly not going to do it.

We get mixed bookings. Extra busy this year. Film crew booked in for a huge chunk next year. It can be variable and any improvements cost money! Your profit! If you have to cover a mortgage I would worry about quiet times if your work isn’t great. I’m not sure if this will make the money you think it will. I’m assuming £200k isn’t buying somewhere that’s amazing! It needs serious financial thought.

Just an en suite shower. Not an enormous one.

The clients I have that have second properties use rental as a nice extra, making money doesn’t stack up like the property shows would have you believe.

Thanks for the feedback.
We have a couple of properties to go and see so will know more when we have seen them. Luckily for us both where we live and holiday £200k buys a decent property.
They both are just moments from the sea and are lovely traditional cosy cottages, but immaculate and both are already holiday rentals, generating around £900 per week in summer season and £400 out of season.
I’m just wondering if we can make it work so we have somewhere to go to semi regularly whilst also generating a small income from it.
The idea of an agent seems to reduce the stress from it and will be good to look into.
I would also be prepared to do a website and bookings myself but would need someone to do the cleaning and maintenance. Lots of food for thought. I like that a property will be enjoyed by our family for years to come and will generate better return than sitting in the bank.

I don’t want to earn a fortune either. Just want to invest my money in something nice for the family that will pay for itself while we aren’t using it.

If I remember correctly, a BTL mortgage isn’t the same as a holiday let mortgage?

My Dsis is buying a camper van with her money which I love the idea of but that will depreciate in value and I hate driving big things .

You are correct they are different, I mistyped, it’s a holiday let mortgage we will be getting.