Cottage owner

Running a holiday cottage abroad from the UK

We have a holiday home abroad that we let on a weekly or short break basis. The theory is great; advertise, get those bookings and start making some money.

Running the house isn’t too difficult because we have a local lady who holds the keys, welcomes our guests, cleans the cottage after guests, launders the bed linen and towels, even mows the lawn. That bit is fine.

However, there are things she does not, or cannot do, such as painting and decorating and general maintenance – we still go out every few months and either do some of this ourselves or employ local tradesmen to help. This may sound easy but in reality there are always complications. We might go out for a couple of weeks but this is not very long when trades people do not turn up as arranged, or spare parts or fittings need to be ordered and there is several weeks delay in delivery.

We also live in the dandelion capital of the world. Trying to keep that lawn weed free is a nightmarish task…. I shall forever associate that house with weeding dandelions. We even do it in our sleep.

Because the house is in a skiing area where it can get very cold during the winter, I worry about the boiler breaking down and the pipes bursting. It’s fine if we have guests because they will quickly let us know if the heating is not working, otherwise I am relying on the goodwill, good health and conscientiousness of my cleaning lady and her family.

Then there is the advertising of the house. No one, absolutely no one, wants to pay for advertising. We have tried all sorts of things such as having our own web site and competing with the trillians of other sites on the web, advertising in portals and various other media, pay per click etc. It is really hard work filling in those web forms detailing the accommodation, uploading images, and don’t mention keeping calendars updated. I fully understand why people opt for the agent route and pay someone else to do it all for them, and if the agent isn’t particularly successful, there are plenty more to try. It’s parting with over 20% of the income that is hard so we continue to do it all ourselves. Perhaps we’ll go the agent route when we’re older, have less energy and plenty more money.

Obviously, the wider the advertising net, the more chance there is of obtaining bookings. Experience is the best teacher. We wouldn't try 'pay per click' with Google and Yahoo again because it didn't bring us the required business, it's not easy getting to grips with the management interface and not that easy to stop the ads.

We find that the following advertising methods work for us:

Portals that provide a link to our own website – they contribute to promoting our own site in the search engines
Sites where it is possible to advertise for free, and only pay commission on bookings obtained via that site. Because we’re abroad, people are likely to do some personal research on the area and therefore have a good chance of finding our web site because of place names they have seen in our ad. Some of these sites also offer a credit card payment facility which could be useful when dealing with foreign currencies
Our own web site (with the assistance of portals linked to it) which manages to attract a few visitors each day, provides local photographs to show how beautiful the countryside is, places to visit and activities. Almost all bookings have come through our own website.

For taking payments from people from other countries we have Internet Banking that accepts transfers or payments made by BACS. This can result in a small currency exchange loss unless you specifically let people know which currency they need to transfer but so would having our own credit card facility. We also use PayPal and cheque.

There are additional unusual tasks from time to time, such as writing letters of confirmation so that people from other foreign countries can apply for visas but nothing too onerous. One slight concern when dealing with foreigners is to ensure that there aren't any misunderstandings and that they realise that self-catering accommodation is just the rental of a house - no meals provided.

And then there are the guests. Sometimes I would love to be a fly on the wall – we have some very interesting groups. Perhaps we should specifically advertise on some of these special interest sites, such as for swingers or hen nights? After all, we don’t personally do the laundry or cleaning.

One of the advantages of not being on site is that we don’t see what goes on. We don’t see children trampling down flowers, or the sticky fingers on walls, young people vomiting after a night out on the town at 3 am in the morning. It’s all cleared up by the time we arrive, thank goodness.

Even though our holiday home benefits from cheap flights, these are quite expensive in periods of high demand such as Christmas and other school holidays unless people book far in advance, but even then they're not so cheap. At these times of year you really need to target the local market to ensure full bookings. We have decided not to let to the local market for security reasons - people cannot carry much away with low luggage allowances on flights.

Renting out our holiday home means that the income pays for the running of the house and enables us to enjoy holidays abroad; but they’re not free – the cost is dandelion nightmares and a certain amount of planning and paperwork.

Do submit your experiences of running a holiday home in the UK or abroad. Please send text plus one image as attachments in an email. Selected articles will be published with a photograph and link to your holiday cottage.

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