Holiday by the sea

Areas such as Cornwall, Norfolk or the Lake or Peak districts have always been hugely popular with people looking for seaside, scenery and a little bit of down time for a few days or week,. Because we live in a seaside town I don’t think we consider ourselves as a 'holiday destination', but I believe that does us a bit of a disservice.

Being so close to London, as well as having the airport, fabulous beaches, great entertainment with a huge number of bars, restaurants and shops together with super attractions such as Adventure Island and the Pier makes our town more popular than you might have thought.

At Scott & Stapleton we have considered this and thought about where a tourist might want to stay if they were visiting the town. There are quite a few hotels now lwith the likes of the Travel Lodge and Holiday Inn types, stretching up to the higher quality ones like The Roslin but, what if you are a family visiting the area?

Having to book 2 rooms can prove very expensive and having to either eat out every night or all sit on a bed to watch telly together can prove a little tiresome, so we have encouraged one of our traditional landlords to let his property as a short term holiday rental rather than the more regular 6 months or longer.

There have been some considerable up front costs involved in furnishing and fitting the property to make it like a home from home for people, but the popularity has astounded us and the yields the landlord is achieving are hugely impressive.

And what can we now offer? A charming 2 bedroom cottage to rent for a few days or weeks. It has a fully fitted kitchen with everything they could need, separate lounge, 2 bedrooms and modern bathroom with towels. We even provide some fresh milk for you to be able to make a cup of tea. Imagine you and the kids have had a day at the beach, you can come home, have a shower and then all crash out in front of the T.V with a take away or cook a pizza or anything else you fancy. You can even wash all of your swimsuits ready for the next day if you wish!

The rise of the AirBnB generation has seen a great boom in this type of holiday and this type of more informal house sitting or swapping is a great way to have a base in a town whilst exploring.

As well as holiday makers and visitors to the town there is also another large group of people that the short term rental market appeals to. If you have read any of my blogs before you will know that in general prices in Leigh on Sea and the surrounding area continue to rise for people hoping to buy. With more detached properties than ever over £1,000,000 it is no wonder that rather than moving and spending tens of thousands of pounds on stamp duties and fees they decide to extend or improve their existing homes (I don’t know of any poor builders in our town).

Having recently gone through the process myself I know the upheaval that is involved in refurbishing a house. You only want to do it once, trust me, so you might as well go the whole hog and get as much done as you can as quickly as you can. Loft conversions, extensions and even basements are becoming commonplace and living through the building work can be difficult to say the least. Put that together with a young family or bad weather causing delays and you can have a recipe for disaster. Much easier if you have the option of packing up your existing house and moving in to somewhere more temporary for a few weeks or months.

You don’t want a traditional rental property where you will have to furnish the property, sort out the services register for council tax and the like. Again think of it as a base that you don’t have to worry about whilst you can concentrate on making the important decisions effecting your existing home and building works.

And better than anything, it is clean and dust free at the end of the day!

I remember getting home from work after the builders had been at my house, spending a good couple of hours cleaning what little of the house we had available to live in and when eventually it was time to collapse in to bed having dust all over my pillow in our bedroom that had been shut up all day!

As I have said, the property we have for these short term rentals is suitable for all types of situations. If you would like to enquire you can reach me ob rob@scottandstapleton.co.uk or 01702 471155. 

Equally, if you're a landlord or property investor who likes the idea of this more flexible and possibly more lucrative approach to letting your property please contact me to discuss further.

This article is by Rob at Scott & Stapleton.
Email: rob@scottandstapleton.co.uk
Tel: 01702 471155

To read all of Rob's previous blogs, please click here