New property

[Sarah5648]

Hi I’m new to this, I put my property live at the end of November, I have 5 bookings all just one or two night stays, all in December, nothing for next year, is it quiet in January for everyone? Would you expect me to get last minute bookings? I don’t want the property empty and have been offered a long let, I’m tempted to take it but it’s no where near as much profit as I could make with Airbnb. Any advice? Thanks Sarah 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Sarah5648 A few thoughts:

1) As you only went live in November all you will realistically get is short notice bookings

2) Until you build a portfolio of reviews guests may not yet trust you to book for longer terms

3) Chopping and changing between short and long term lets is difficult for business rates/council tax and also for the different tax regimes between Furnished Holiday Lets and long term rentals.

4) You will have wasted all the money put in to buy STR insurance and to meet the costs of the new fire risk assessments. Also you will have additional costs for EPCs if you switch to LTR.

Finally STR revenues are way higher than LTR but the costs are also significantly more especially in the Winter.

[Sarah5648]

Yes thanks for this information , think I’m a little impatient! I have 2 reviews now and by the end of the month 4 more.

[Helen3]

Have a look on Airdna to get a. Idea of supply and demand in your area @Sarah5648  for your type of listing . Many areas in the UK have oversaturated markets.  

It takes time to build up demand for a listing and we're in low season apart from the festive holidays . 

no-one here can tell you whether you're likely to get last minute bookings you'd need to carry out your own market research to try and understand this .

have you joined your local host group and asked other local hosts how they are doing? 

[Sarah5648]

Thanks for this, no I’ve not joined my local host group, I will look at doing this now. Sarah