What do you look for in holiday cottage

[Kara 1]

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We are thinking of renting our house as a hol let in the future, we are in a village with lovely walks direct from the door and only 10 miles from Historic Portsmouth and Southampton, lots of National trust places nearby.
5 dog friendly pubs in the village .
Our house is a 3 double bedroom semi detached house with offroad parking for 3 cars ...
We would allow unlimited dogs ...we have found it difficult to find holiday let's that allow more than 3 dogs ...
The ground floor is open plan kitchen dining family area with a separate snug with working open fire,
All real oak floors with rugs and a downstairs toilet and utility room.
Upstairs are 3 double bedrooms with a big bathroom with roll top bath and large walk in shower .
I will upload some photos later ...is there anything in particular you look for inside the holiday home .
Thanks

 

[Kara 1]

 

[Mayblossom]

Looks lovely Kara , we always look for an enclosed safe garden so dogs can be safely let out under supervision . Are you in a rural area ? We like peace and quiet and not on a main road .

 

[Ari_RR]

3rd picture seems to show a fenced yard. If that’s what it is - I would highlight in the adverts, for me this would be an important feature.

Lovely house.

 

[Mayblossom]

Just noticed the garden and can see it is very secure

 

[Kara 1]

Yes it's a 6ft fully fenced garden laid to artificial lawn and patio area .
We are rural and the house is 30ft off of a quiet road .
Fully fitted kitchen with range cooker , washing machine tumble dryer, large fridge freezer suitable for people that raw feed ...we would also offer a service of ordering raw food for dogs if needed .

 

[Mad Murphy]

Sounds great. We have to take Basil our parrot with us when we go away so that can be a problems for some people... A free roaming dog is ok but mention a parrot and some people get very doubtful!
We like places with good access to walks a well equipped kichten, an easy to clean house with enough facilities to clean the house and ourselves (including Murphy). Your house seems to have all of that..
As others have said the secure garden is a really good feature and you should highlight that.

good luck with your plans

 

[JudyN]

Wow... it looks great. I might have trouble resisting taking the brass lurcher in the middle of the mantelpiece home with me!

From a purely personal point of view - the artificial grass would be a bit of a pain as Jasper won't poo on it (he can pee round the edges) so we'd still have to take him for his morning constitutional every day. But it's not as if that's something you would change. I'd want to know if there were good off-lead walks straight from the door, and whether there were any sheep in the area (which means that he'd have to be onlead the whole time). And if there was a large deer population...

I'd also like an idea of the layout of the bedrooms. If J is stressed at night (like when we're somewhere unfamiliar) he sometimes doesn't want to let me get up and go for a wee in the night and can get quite threatening. We can easily deal with this by putting his bed on the far side of the room and blocking his exit from that side of the room with a suitcase (which he could pretty much step over but he doesn't realise this). Some holiday cottage bedrooms are so small that there simply isn't room for him on the far side of the bed.

 

[Nanny71]

Looks great. Enclosed garden and parking are all we look for. Dudley won't poo in gardens so artificial grass no problem. He likes a look round when he gets there. Then is quite happy overnight downstairs in his bed.

 

[Kara 1]

Lots of good walks 5 mins from the house across fields ,no sheep occasion cows but there are so many walks you don't need to see any ...Our local woods does have deer hence my lot wear muzzles ...we do have access to a lovely enclosed field 20 min away at manor farm ...thanks you for all your input ..
The bronze lurcher was a present bought whilst we were in Scotland

 

[JudyN]

Let us know when/if you start letting it out, it ticks practically all my boxes!

 

[Kara 1]

Definitely

 

[Caro Perry]

We are thinking of renting our house as a hol let in the future, we are in a village with lovely walks direct from the door and only 10 miles from Historic Portsmouth and Southampton, lots of National trust places nearby.
5 dog friendly pubs in the village .

It's hard work Kara - a lot of your lovely things will get broken and damaged so you would need to only leave items you have no attachment to. Holiday cottages have a very hard life and it's a constant round of repairs, replacement and upgrades. That drippy tap you live with quite happily could well garner you a poor review and heaven help you if some guests find a speck of dust behind the bookcase. Yes some really do look! 4 in a bed has a lot to answer for.

Unless you are able to do your own laundry and changeovers you'll need to reckon on it costing you £100 or so each time. Guest expectations are rising and many expect 5* properties for 2* pricing - ABnB has definitely driven down prices and more landlords are abandoning AST properties in favour of the holiday market for the tax breaks so competition can be tough.

If you are seriously thinking of doing it then I would strongly recommend you visit this holiday let owners forum Lay My Hat - advice for rental owners, from rental owners (or you can PM me!)

 

[JudyN]

Oh, I forgot - as much info as possible about local and not so local walks (maybe with OS maps), where to shop, dog-friendly pubs, cafes, pizza delivery, etc., and local/not so local attractions. And details of recycling, including food waste - every area differs in what you can recycle and how.

 

[Caro Perry]

Actually I'm glad to see I'm not missing anything here! Even provide the O/S maps (costs me a small fortune each year that does!)

 

[Kara 1]

Yes we had thought of leaflets and printing out information...
We always rented the house out to families, we lived in a 2 bed detached bungalow at the rear of the garden .
My inlaws were thinking of going into a home so they laid the remainder of our mortgage and moved into the bungalow and we moved into the house ...we have literally gutted it and everything is new ..we will remain here until father in law moves on and were thinking of renting house as a holiday let instead ....

 

[JudyN]

@Caro Perry, I'm just being nosy, but what percentage of guests do you reckon are overly fussy, or don't admit to damage, or don't replace an OS map that's been out in the rain? We've always owned up to damage or replaced the item but I'm sure not everyone would.

Just remembered - one cottage didn't have dishwasher tablets or teatowels, which was a bit of a nuisance. Another cottage, as part of the welcome pack, and four enormous homebaked scones, a sundae glass full of clotted cream and another of jam. I could overlook pretty much anything after that!

 

[Kara 1]

After renting the house to families I think a holiday let will be a doddle...hubby is a builder and handyman and I own my own cleaning round ...we have stayed in numerous dog holiday lets ...aiming more for people with multiple dogs and not children...that have been lovely...we have leather furniture hard wearing and wooden floors with washable rugs...the only appliance we don't have is a dishwasher

 

[Nanny71]

Never really complained about anything. We take, teatowels, dish sponges, towels, washing up liquid
. Never use the dishwasher even if there is one.
We did have to buy egg cups at one holiday cottage. Left them for future tenants.
Over the last four years we have averaged five cottages a year.

 

[Caro Perry]

@Caro Perry, I'm just being nosy, but what percentage of guests do you reckon are overly fussy, or don't admit to damage, or don't replace an OS map that's been out in the rain? We've always owned up to damage or replaced the item but I'm sure not everyone would.

Most people don't I'm afraid. I expect to find glasses and crockery missing at changeovers. We factor those in to the overheads as consumables.

First set of guests broke both the toilet seats - this is apparently quite common! The second managed to break the door shelves in my fridge freezer beyond normal repair. You name it I expect it's happened. I'll spare you the pictures my cleaner sent me of the fridge full of blood. Cleaning holiday lets is not a job for the faint hearted.

I think I've had 2 guests own up to damage and these were both pretty trivial in the scheme of things.

As for those O/S maps - it's not so much they get wet, it's more they go AWOL! Guests put them in their cars to use and quite often forget to put them back. I provide 13 different maps, they are numbered so I can tell at a glance which have gone missing and need to be replaced. I absorb the cost of this but it's actually quite a significant cost. I probably buy 10 new maps a year.

We've been OK on the picky ones so far. The cottage was deliberately designed to be very easy to clean and I have an excellent housekeeper who cleans to the very high standard needed. That's vital if you take dogs which we do of course. I don't want the next set of guests to know that a dog has ever set a paw in there before. I've seen plenty of damning reviews though on other cottages which are harsher than the offence. A spider can put up a web in the hour between the cleaners leaving and the next guests arriving and dog hairs from certain breeds will cling to rugs with a tenacity that has to be seen to be believed.