The pandemic has brought significant changes to the lettings industry over the last year. Landlords have seen considerable movement as tenants look to relocate to incorporate home offices or the need for more outside space whilst the holiday let providers have been faced with moving their customer bookings further and further into the distance.
There is still a considerable demand for rental properties in our local area and with no guarantee that the tourism season will be able to resume for Easter, let alone the school holidays in the summer, could there be an obvious solution here?
Naturally, holiday lets provide a much better yield than a long term tenancy, but the stop/start cycle that the wider hospitality industry has endured has affected customer confidence. Even when the Government gives the green light for the industry to reopen, can we be certain that tourists will return consistently in the numbers we would need?
Matt Hutchinson, communications director of flatshare website, SpareRoom, told The Sunday Times back in June 2020:
“At the start of lockdown, we noticed a trend in landlords and homeowners switching from using short-term rental sites [such as Airbnb] to looking for longer-term security. Some mentioned concerns over widespread cancellations, others about lots of people moving in and out.”
There are two main benefits to moving back to a longer let strategy - a steady, regular income, over a minimum six-month term, and a dramatic reduction in the effort required to manage the property. No more marketing spend to fill the rental weeks, no more management of monthly bills such as utilities and the internet, as these would become the responsibility of the tenant and no more weekly or weekend changeovers which by their nature will now be required deep-cleans and therefore more costly.
Moving to a long term let, even in the short term, may yield less return but will be far less labour intensive over the same timeframe. It may be just the solution to provide a regular income until ‘normality’ can be resumed.
For more information or to discuss your individual properties, Andrew and Louise, our lettings specialists can be contacted on 0800 389 2939 or you can send a message via our Contact Us page.