Hard times for the holiday let industry in the UK?

[user1477391263]

Seems like the post-COVID recovery, crappy weather, COL and other factors have dampened the situation for people owning holiday lets in places like Cornwall. On the other hand, perhaps (as the article hints towards the end) there will be an increase in long term rental properties coming on to the market.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/apr/07/britains-staycation-boom-may-be-over-as-bookings-dry-up?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1712464698

Anecdata from talking to friends tells me that many people are fed up with the rising cost of holiday lets in these places, more and more demands being placed on guest re cleaning etc., and the fact that so many local places like restaurants are understaffed; of course, part of the issue may be that locals have to an extent been priced out of the local housing market, meaning there are fewer people available to clean, mow lawns or wait on tables. It may be a good thing if the local housing market self-corrects in this manner.

I'd much rather stay in a hotel/B&B anyway, don't want the faff of cleaning etc when i'm on holiday, same abroad, i always book hotels. I do feel for those in all tourist areas who are struggling to get housing due to the holiday lets, there should be more restrictions in place around the numbers of holidays lets in each town.

Though I don't follow the argument that people staying in a holiday cottage have less regard for the local community than those staying in hotels. Also they spend more on food and drink in local shops than those staying in hotels.

I can see that rowdy people can be a problem but they are anywhere, and also a shortage of rentals and houses to buy for locals. Holiday lets exacerbate that, but it is really a failure to control the housing market and a failure to build affordable homes which is the real issue. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with hiring a cottage for the week instead of taking package holidays abroad or going to a hotel. People have always done it, it's not something that started with AirBnb. I don't want to stay in a hotel when we go away as a family with our fairly big dog.

There is a thread on cost of living at the moment ‘are anyone else’s air B and B bookings through the floor?’ It’s an interesting read.

The last time I tried to book one, they all but asked me to upload a photo of my gran’s knees from 1976 to prove I was a serious traveller. It gave my other half the utter rage and made him want to book a luxury hotel at the same cost. Where you just click ‘pay now’ and have a bed.

Then the cost per night went from £130 to £275 a night once fees were added. Three bedroom house, could sleep three families, shrug. But In a sleepy little village in which the 4 other air b and bs were also all available, bar the one night or so, for every single night from this weekend through to the end of May. Because the village hardly has any amenities and parking is terrible.

I have seen three family homes for sale in the last week which were clearly air b and b - the change is coming, and it’s gathering pace.

And I've never stayed anywhere where I've had "the faff of cleaning". All I've done is make sure we left everything we used clean and put away, emptied the bins and stripped the beds. Same in the UK and in places I've stayed in the rest of Europe. In a hotel room I make sure all the rubbish is in the bin and it is left tidy, it's very little more. And when the kids were little I certainly didn't want to be going to bed at their bedtime in a hotel room.

Poor you! Sell it then?

To give you an example, here is a 2 bed apartment in nerja , Spain for 21st to 28th August - nice upmarket resort , decent looking spacious apartment with pool. Add in easyJet flights at good times from Gatwick with a hold bag and flights for 2 adults and 2 kids aged 10 and 7 and total is £2363 - and that's school holidays. To me seems way better value than a week at an average spec holiday cottage in say Dorset, Devon or Cornwall for around £2k and probably no stupid rules - I guess the only difference is you can't take a dog etc and 'may' have airport parking on top

https://www.booking.com/hotel/es/aguamarina-7-menyber.en-gb.html?aid=304142&label=gen173nr-1FCAEoggI46AdICVgEaFCIAQKYAQm4AQfIAQ3YAQHoAQH4AQKIAgGoAgO4AoyNsbAGwAIB0gIkNzA0YTcyMDQtNzRmMS00MWY2LTk2Y2MtZGJkZTczYzEzZDU42AIF4AIB&sid=ac0687e1a53671f51b5986b1fbb34c89&allsrrblocks=55466150126023538330000;checkin=2024-08-21;checkout=2024-08-28;destid=-393985;destttype=city;dist=0;groupadults=2;grouppchildren=0;hapos=1;highlightedblocks=55466150112602353830000;hpos=1;matchinggblockid=55466150112602353830000;noorooms=2;reqadults=2;reqqchildren=0;room1=A;room2=A;sbpriceetype=total;srorder=popularity;srrpriblocks=554661501126023538300000101640;srepoch=1712921386;srpvid=72b350d3362e0243;type=total;ucfs=1&

Plus hire car which could easily add another 1,000 in August but yes, your point still stands.

I think covid travel restrictions put people off international travel for far longer than the restrictions lasted - it took a while for people to "trust" again that they'd be able to go and the airports that first year were an absolute horror. I'm not sure my dad (late 70's) will go abroad again- even though he never actually went to the airport during the 7 hour security queue time or got personally rejected for not having the right covid vaccination certificate, he's heard about it, and that's enough 😂But generally, people have forgotten about that now and heading abroad again.

We live in a holiday let hotspot (actually the holiday stay guests are fine, it's the day-trippers who are a nightmare but that's another story). It has definitely been quieter this year. Usually the Air bnb next door would be block booked from beginning of March to end of September and this year I think there's only been 1 week and then another shorter break.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the tax rules change on furnished holiday lets.

I suspect they will not be anywhere near as arrractive for people to own (which is entirely the point)

I agree with your posts @shearwater2

I'm not sure if there is a difference between AirB&B and other rental sides such as Vrbo and Booking? I've seen the same properties advertised on all 3 sites but the second two don't add additional fees to the advertised price. I've never seen ridiculous rules around full cleaning - although I would expect to take my rubbish out and wipe surfaces over. I think 10.00 has always been standard check out time - but it's the check in time which has got later - and that we find inconvenient.

UK holiday cottages have always been poor value, the caravan parks are much better.
i had to have uk holidays in Covid and bitterly resented being rinsed for the cost and having to do the cleaners work at the end.
id rather stay in a travel lodge or go abroad

That describes my memory of cottage hire when the DC were young. The "AirBnB" effect seemed to bring a lot of hobby let onto the market which have much the same problems as the hobby landlords from the buy to let boom. The RyanAir effect whereby the headline price is heavily inflated by "extras" has also reduced the reputation of the industry.

When DC were small I remember booking, paying the fee, paying a deposit (invariably returned) - job done. Now its rent, booking fee, cleaning fee and multiple other extras making the total price bloody expensive. Expectations around cleaning have gone up as well. I'm in London - £150 cleaning fee would buy me 8-10 hrs of cleaning. Actual changeover times are rarely more than a couple of hours even with linen change assuming up to sleeps six. On top of which there is far more cleaning required by the guest.

It was me who mentioned windows - that was one of my DC on a three night weekend in a one bed (two room) cottage. She queried it - it was expected and the owner was sniffy about it. She mentioned it in passing in the requested review because the extra cleaning requirements were not in the details. She got a snotty mail back saying they would complain about her on the site if she didn't take it down. They had already paid £100 cleaning charge. WTF was the cleaning charge for if a three day let requires that much cleaning by the guest in a two room cottage?

Interestingly places I've known which have been in the business for decades still run their places much the same as when the kids were small. It seems to be the more recent entrants pulling this shit but they are a big chunk of the market in some areas

The LL’s got greedy, and people realised they were being fleeced. Not surprising.

I suspect this is true. Landlords or holiday letters in it for the long term don't generally try to squeeze every last penny of current revenue - they want a good long term business with tenants they can trust for long term lets or returners for holidays lets.

In the last few years, the bad seem to have expanded - maybe due to covid. With any luck they will go out of business and the market will settle to a fair deal for both sides. However most of the owners of these properties are themselves local - outside niche villages which get a lot of attention it isn't evil outsiders buying up properties, its local people and local landowners.

True, but a gite in France is generally a fraction of the cost of an equivalent property in the UK. Also, have booked through Gites de France dozens of times without any problems. Booked once with Air BnB and they cancelled it the day before!

Definitely this. I want my kids in a separate space so I can put them to bed earlier. Stayed in a few places in the Netherlands where the kids are in a room and the double bed is in the living area. It’s perfect.

Another point, re France. Many holiday lets have been created from repurchased disused farm buildings and tourism is much more spread out there so less impact on the area for locals.

@LaPalmaLlama yep- we live in Bath and get an awful lot of day trippers and mini breaks here. To be honest the city needs them as tourism is a major employer here and keeps it lively (as well as the students) - the Airbnb thing here isa right old issue for the long term lettings market here , especially when mixed with zillions of student only flat blocks

I guess not everyone does car hire either when away-if you don't then the costs start looking comparable- except you can usually get some service- I must admit I would be really miffed to find places shutting at 9 or reservations cancelled etc on holiday in August -but understand the issues

It was six years after our first child was born that we went on a UK cottage holiday.
It would have been around 2001.

We chose English Country Cottages as my in-laws swore by them.
At that time we only had a brochure to look at and the only picture was of the outside. We didn't have much money but could afford a "cottage" in the area we were interested in.

This "cottage " turned out to be a semi in an ordinary suburb. The interior was extremely dated ( think 60s/70s)

It was clearly an inherited property and the owners greeted us to show us around!

We didn't know what to say as...

The washing machine was an aged top loader. The dryer was a pull out spinning machine.
The owner was very proud of the 'well stocked' pantry that contained a box of Lux Soap flakes which had a price on it of ( I forget exactly) 2/6d
Vim Scouring powder
OXO cubes and herbs and spices that clearly came from decades before.
It was like the land that time forgot.

I have no idea how such a reputable company like ECC came to sign it off but they did .

All that being said, our bed was the most comfortable bed that we've ever slept in.

However, I suspect a lot of people , who inherit properties in tourist areas do exactly this. Rent them out to make money/augment their pension but update/provide as little as they can get away with.

We holidayed with various cottage holiday companies over the years and there doesn't appear to be an industry standard.
Some would provide only one roll of toilet paper but others would have a heap of them.
Some would leave out one or two dishwasher tablets and others would leave a box.
Some would only provide enough crockery /cutlery for the number of people for just one meal .

We ditched these holidays a few years ago once we realised how much these cottage rental's impacted local communities and, at our last holiday, in Cornwall, it was apparent that most of the village was ' owned ' by outsiders or 'get rich quick' merchants.

We now only stay in hotels or guest houses and, quite honestly, it's worked out cheaper and we never have to cook or clean.

The industry needs regulating and Airbnb property owners are operating disgracefully, judging by the various threads that there have been on this issue.

Would have been more difficult in 2001 to check online but I've never stayed in a bad place as I've only stayed anywhere with lots of good reviews on several platforms.

My experience of airbnb places is exactly the same as other holiday lets, no more or less tidying or extensive cleaning required.

IMO the cost of them is just totally out of control. Increasingly they seem to be MORE expensive than nice hotels.

Id rather stay somewhere with decent facilities / a restaurant / ability to store luggage / breakfast etc.

I agree on the issue of hotel rooms and kids - it can be very difficult to find suitable hotels to allow an evening for the parents.

I’ve looked at hotels instead but never been able to find anything cheaper for 6 of us (taking my mum as well and she needs her own room, as does ds18 ideally). So 4 beds. Plus the cost of not being able to cook or buy breakfast to make (cereals), nor anywhere to chill together play games etc and no good for dogs. Hotels and guesthouses just don’t work for bigger families.

My husband is gluten free and we often book Airbnb or similar because it's much easier to have a kitchen and cook our own food. He has been upset by hotel and restaurant food so often that we prefer to cook our own.

I own and run a holiday apartment in the south west. It was previously a hotel, it’s never been a family home. The ‘hotel’ model fell out of fashion and that’s when it was converted into apartments. It first became a holiday let 18 years ago. I think there are some misunderstandings about the running of these places.

i think there’s room for holiday lets in the market. People want a choice of type of accommodation, however I think that there are too many of them and in some cases the offer is very low standard and not compliant with local rules or safety standards.

Those of us running the business diligently know that fire safety rules have changed recently, for example. We know what the new rules are, we have spent money becoming compliant with them and we know we have to display a fire risk assessment in our property. We also know that we cannot use council bins, we have to pay for our waste disposal (mine costs £4.50 a bag).

I pay my cleaner £95 per clean, and the linen costs £55. I choose the better quality (bigger) towels and high cotton thread bedding, even though I could choose the cheaper stuff to keep my costs down. I have a nest thermostat but I don’t limit the temperature. I regularly change the pillows, I get everything cleaned, including the carpets. I don’t scrimp because people work hard and I want them to love my property.

my changeover costs are £150 whether somebody stays for a week or a night. This makes short bookings financially unviable, so there’s a minimum 3 nights.

check out is 10am because it takes my cleaner 2 hours to clean, and sometimes things go wrong and need attending to. Like for example there was a window catch broken last weekend. Nobody is asked to strip a bed. When my dishwasher broke, I had a replacement installed within three days and gave the family a voucher to eat at the local pub.

Check in is 2pm, so it gives my cleaner a 4 hour window. If the apartment is ready at 12, I will make sure the guest is contacted and told they can check in earlier. Believe it or not, if I know they’ve had mixed weather, I’ll let them stay an extra night for free if the weather is nice when they are due to leave (and I have no guests coming) because I know it’s rotten having to leave just as the weather turns.

I leave a welcome hamper. All of this adds up. My agent takes more than 15% in commission, so I prefer to take private bookings with 15% discount. I have a mortgage on the property which was £665 per month and is now £1135 per month. Cost of everything has rocketed, but I’ve kept my prices the same.

By contrast, I have stayed in air bnb properties that don’t even have a smoke alarm, or where I’m instructed to put my rubbish in council bins because the owner won’t pay for commercial waste. I’ve stayed in dirty properties where I’ve had to clean the kitchen before I can use it.

The idea that people can just move out of their homes and let them out ‘for the money’ over the summer neglects to consider that the owner is acting unlawfully if they let their property without a fire risk assessment and adequate safeguards. You need a gas safety certificate, fire risk assessment, PAT testing. The list is endless. I also have to have public liability insurance.

and yet despite this, I still see some shoddy, cheap looking properties on air bnb for the same price as mine, which has parking and a full sea view in a popular resort. I was looking at one today that was in a really grotty village in the middle of Cornwall but charges the same as me. I’ve also recently seen misleading adverts for properties where the owner has used photographs of a beach 40 miles away and claimed it’s their ‘local beach.’

Soon, holiday lets will need to be regulated and registered. It cannot come soon enough. Some of us are making a decent job of providing a holiday let offer, others have jumped on a bandwagon thinking they can squeeze money out of people, others are not even declaring their income and paying tax (that’s going to stop, too).

I personally never wanted to be stuck in a hotel room with my small children, and when I go away with friends, I want somewhere we can get into our pyjamas and open a bottle of wine. People do need a choice, but they need a fair and decent choice that follows safety rules and offers what they’ve paid for. I think lots of these holiday lets will struggle and be returned to local housing stock once things begin to shake out, the problem is I also think some of them will be snapped up as second homes in certain areas, as the local people can’t afford them. The government has made it so difficult to be a landlord, I can’t see many owners of holiday lets flipping them to ASTs

Yes, this! Having to read copious rules about bins!

We have switched back to hotels, much better value and service