Do you really want fluffy towels and new linens? What are your limits with country holiday lets?

[cottageinthecountry]

I'm about to renovate a cottage for letting out for holidays. It's in a very rural position and can withstand a lot of wear and tear regarding mud and wildlife. I'm letting it out on Airbnb which has been great but I'm quickly getting drawn into the competitive linen game.

It's a great place for children and pets to charge about in the mud and I'm almost certain this will be brought into the house on a regular basis - it's rural position is its charm. But how do I market something so that people don't expect it to be spotless as a spa resort and give me bad ratings and disgruntled reviews?

I would be grateful if you could tell me what you prefer - a bit of mud and insect life or a spotless haven? What are your boundaries?

I think, to get bookings, you have to try to please as many people as possible. The dog owners, not dog owners (lots of cleaning) tv watchers / those who never bother. The more people you can attract, the more bookings, the more money.

We also find having a ground floor bedroom and bathroom a real positive in both our places as during term time your market is often older folk / very young families.

A DVD player would be handy too. Instant entertainment for the DC or a film on a rainy day.

I will put a TV and DVD player in both large rooms. Wifi is not really good enough for streaming so people will depend on that for entertainment.

I have now re-worded everything on the ad, it will make much more sense.

www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/1982820

I have changed the pricing now as well so it's lower but added a hefty cleaning fee. This ensures that I don't lose custom on off peak weekends which I think will be a big part of my lettings.

Not lose custom, lose profit!

It needs to be let for 12 weeks and 10 off peak weekends to cover costs.

No way would I pay a cleaning fee - hefty or otherwise! I expect holiday let to be cleaned before I arrive and after I leave and it be included in booking price.

I wouldn't pay a cleaning fee either I'm afraid. Why don't you just build it into the price? Charge more relatively for shorter stays. I know quite a few large cottage rentalsites have removed their extra fees and built it into the price, as otherwise it just put people off.
You may also be surprised how many people want to book a week off peak. Not everyone has children and wants to holiday at peak time!

I'd be put right off being charged a cleaning fee. I always leave a cottage as clean as I found it!

Cleaning fee? Seriously? You need to stop thinking of the place as a home or long term let and think of it as more like an hotel.

Also, check tax implications. It needs to be let 28 weeks a year and be properly available.

Sykes, who we use charge x for a full week and 2/3 of x for a weekend break. Works very well.

I like your new description though.

You may wish to add info about fuel for the woodburner. Is it provided? If so how much? A lot of places say they provide 1 basket of logs for example and then charge £x for additional fuel. Otherwise you risk people in winter having it roaring all week and using all your fuel.

I think cleaning fee is standard for airbnb though?

You could lock away the bulk of your wood in a shed and just put out a basket full for the first day, then they get their own from a petrol station or similar.

The cleaning fee would put me off too, I'd prefer there to be just one fee for the property, none of this per person per night business either.

No, no , no , we are not in France, you do not charge a separate cleaning fee, or if you absolutely insist on charging one you make it commensurate with the actual cost of cleaning so 40 - 50.

Separately, OP, I do look at the total fee on airbnb when comparing options so not sure how a cleaning Fee helps?

Pricing depends on the website you use. A lot of my business will be off season weekends and I need £500 on those to break even. I can't advertise it as that because it messes up the price for people staying for a week in the holidays so I reduced the original price of both and add the cleaning fees to top it back up. I hope that makes sense.

Airbnb is one of those sites where you only really see what you're paying when you select the dates and number of people. It doesn't make much sense otherwise.

My cleaner will also wash towels and sheets, when you have ten people staying somewhere that is probably 5 hours work in total. The overheads are the same for a weekend as they are for a week so the weekend price has to be quite a lot more.

It's not 28 weeks for tax, it's 15. or 105 days. My schedule is for 12 full weeks and 10 off season weekends.

OK I spent about 3 hours trying to work out cost of linens v. weight and the kind of machine needed to wash each type. The difference between lightweight cotton and high thread count is around an extra laundry load, the good linens being sometimes 1kg heavier than the low grade. This adds an extra £20 to the cleaning fee as the cleaner will have to stay an extra hour or two. I will go for cheap cotton for the single beds and lightweight linen for the doubles.

I can get a machine that will fit 11kilo, probably 9 realistically. That's enough for 5 bed sets. Actual cleaning fees will be at least £70.

Towels will be fresh but not overly fluffy.

Tweaked the prices on Airbnb to reflect weekly @£1300 for a peak week and £470 for a weekend. Does that sound reasonable?

If you are getting weekends, then do your standard changeover on a Friday, all year round. It makes it easier to get cleaners as well.

Your weekend charge seems right. Try to have a standard charge that is higher than you need to break even / make money so you can offer discounts to fill up last minute weeks or weekends.

Also , use holidaylettings as it is much more suited to the market you are looking at. Free to join and they only take 3% of each booking. They do a fixed fee - you take all the money, but it is not really worth it. I am getting lots of business through them and there is an app which makes managing bookings really easy.

If I was charged that as a cleaning fee a) it would put me off booking and b) I wouldn't feel inclined to do any cleaning while I was there - we always give the place a good clean before we leave and while we are there, and if I was charged £150 I would probably leave you with a grubby house and a sink full of washing up as well, to feel that I was getting VFM!

SheSche - any holiday let you use will be paying cleaners but they simply add it into your cost - regardless of how clean you leave it. They may be paying cleaners, laundry bills amounting to a lot more but it's part of the cost and you don't see it. Just because you don't see the cost doesn't mean you are getting VFM. I might reduce the price a bit, there is a lot of demand for large properties though. It's early days.

Thanks Rose, I looked at one website and they were asking for 20% fees! 3% is much more reasonable. I'm beginning to realise how stingy/greedy I am as I'm going through this process - although some would see that as the mark of a good businesswoman.

Going to chuck out all the old furniture (I will personally burn the wicker table), decorate and then get all the wood and floors stripped, tiles re-waxed and as much white paint in as I can without ruining the look. New patio out back, everything as fresh and durable as possible.

That should of course be SheScha ;)

I have been reading this thread with interest and really want to see the "after pictures.

What a project! Looks incredible

You have had lots of great advice from the professionals, so just adding some points of view from a holidaymaker pov...

Glad you are installing additional bathrooms. A 5 bedroom holiday house needs 3 bathrooms

You seem to be confusing old with dirty. Guests will accept that old flagstone floors look worn. They won't tolerate mud , dog hair and food left from the previous guests. Cleanliness is hugely important.

If you allow dogs, some lets charge an extra fee to cover the additional cleaning costs. Consider restricting dog access to eg living areas / conservatory only.

Get woodworm professionally treated before doing anything else!

Consider zip and link beds for maximum flexibility.

Wtf is with all the Crouch End references ? Is it some kind of mystical realm where the gurus of holiday cottage design gather ?

Nobody's bothered about the historical provenance of your rattan furniture. They just want furniture which is comfortable , clean, sturdy and inoffensive.

Don't use your cast-off fridges and sofas.

And good luck !

Thanks Inertia!

Crouch End is where people with growing families buy tiny flats in order to get their children into the naicest local school. By the time the oldest is 4 the dcs are bouncing off the walls and their parents could probably do with a weekend in the country where they might have a break from their cabin fever. This is where my cottage comes in, to provide the answer to their stressed urban cool lifestyles in the form of practical sofas and low grade, but clean, linens. These people are very likely to be my guests/punters.

The reference originally came from someone from Crouch End who told me they stay in a really scuzzy old place for cheap but they liked it because it means that they don't worry about it getting dirty and don't have to keep telling their dcs off for smearing mud on walls or whatever it is these children do.

Ah, ok. Well I wouldn't use that person as your professional yardstick. What you could take from that conversation is that your cottage needs to be very easy to clean ( not scuzzy already! ) and with no breakable ornaments.

If your cottage is clean and well-provisioned, your customers will look after it. If it's full of cast off furniture and dirty people won't look after it and then they will complain about you on TripAdvisor. It is really not the norm for parents to allow children to wreck a holiday house. A well planned boot room with welly / shoe storage and coat racks should get round the mud issue.

Also agree with the PP who suggested floor plans - really important for large groups to check whether sleeping arrangements work for them.

Should be a comma between dirty and people !