As a holiday rental owner, you’ll be used to having guests stay in your properties for a variety of lengths of time. But perhaps you’ve been considering renting it out to the same guests for several weeks or even months as a long-term holiday let, which is an option that is growing more popular as more and more people adopt the digital nomad lifestyle or have flexible jobs that let them work from anywhere.
Both short-term and long-term lets for a holiday property can be advantageous for owners, which might leave you wondering which option is better for your long-term success. In this article, we discuss the benefits and challenges of both options to help you decide how you should be offering and marketing your holiday rental property.
Benefits of short-term lets
Perhaps the main benefit of letting your holiday property for short stays is that it can bring in the most profit. You’ll typically price short-term lets by night, and overall this tends to work out bringing in more money when you’ve got multiple shorter stays because the price per night is higher than a longer trip.
Another big benefit is that you have a lot more flexibility when you’re only letting your property out to the same guests for a maximum of 1-2 weeks, for example. If you decide that you want to stay at the property yourself, need to redecorate or have work done, or just want a break from managing it for holidaymakers, it’s much easier to block off periods of time when the house is not available without causing too much disruption to bookings.
There’s typically more demand for shorter stays in the holiday rental market, as many guests are only looking to go away for between a couple of nights to about a week. When you’re marketing your property as a short-term holiday home, you’ve got a much larger pool of potential guests who are likely to make a booking, so there’s more demand that will translate into more profit.
Having different guests staying every week or even every couple of days also means that you’ll have more chances to check on and maintain the property yourself, which can be a big advantage to some owners. This increase in maintenance and accessibility also means that there’s less likely to be significant wear and tear or issues that go unnoticed, which can save you money in running costs in the long-term.
Challenges of short-term lets
One of the key challenges of short-term holiday lets is managing the property and getting it cleaned and ready for guests every time you have a changeover. If you’re taking responsibility for this yourself, you can find that a lot of your time is taken up by this maintenance, which can also be stressful.
Of course, you can use a holiday let management company to take charge of things like cleaning, changeovers and check-ins for you. But if you want to handle things yourself, having guests stay for shorter periods of time will create a lot more work.
Whilst short-term rentals can often see high demand over particular seasons, you might also end up facing periods of time where nobody is staying in your property and you’re not making any money off it at all. Over time you’ll likely get better at navigating the high and low seasons for guests and be able to plan accordingly, but this lack of stability in interest can be challenging.
You should also consider that having different guests regularly coming and going from your property may end up causing problems with neighbours, especially if your guests aren’t sticking to rules about noise and the number of people allowed to stay in the house. In a similar vein, having more guests staying more frequently also increases the likelihood that you’ll occasionally have people staying who are rude or uncooperative, so you’ll need to be prepared to handle that.
Benefits of long-term lets
Choosing to let your holiday property for longer periods of time is different to offering it as a domestic rental property, although that is also an option if you’re considering different ways to make a profit from the places you own. Guests may wish to stay for several weeks or even several months, which is particularly common with solo travellers or couples.
A big benefit of letting your holiday home out for longer periods is that it’s much less hassle to maintain. Guests will not expect any cleaning to be done whilst they’re there, and unless there are any urgent maintenance issues, you won’t have to worry about the property at all until they leave.
Another benefit is that it’s easier to do financial forecasting when you have guests that will be staying for longer. Instead of navigating high and low seasons of interest, you should have a much steadier stream of income from your property.
Challenges of long-term lets
A drawback of letting your property for longer holidays or workations is that the cost per night tends to be lower than with shorter holidays. Whilst your overall income is unlikely to suffer because of greater stability, if you’re looking to make money quickly then this might not be the best option.
Having guests book for multiple weeks also means that you don’t have as much flexibility with your holiday home, so won’t be able to use it yourself or gain access without having to arrange this with the current guests first. This can be frustrating, and can also mean that you miss out on being able to capitalise on busy periods where shorter stays might be more profitable.
When guests are living in your property for longer, there will likely be more cleaning, organising, and maintenance required during stays. Instead of just being able to change sheets and do a quick clean, more thorough work will be required, which can be more effort than you’re willing or able to spend.
Conclusion
There are benefits and drawbacks to both letting your holiday property for long and short periods of time. Ultimately, the decision will come down to how much work you want to put into maintaining and handling the property yourself, and the timescale of your financial goals with the profits of the holiday home.
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