Holiday lets letting agent charges

I have just completed the purchase of my first ever holiday rental property in Bakewell you can see a picture of the kitchen above.

A day after completing the purchase I've also had my first booking of my luxury Bakewell accommodation at the beginning of September which gives me just over a month to furnish the shell with the likes of beds, wardrobes, kitchen equipment.  This is all new for me as I always let out my buy-to-let properties unfurnished.  I'm now manically surfing the web in search of furniture and design inspiration for my Scandinavian design masterpiece overlooking the River Wye.  It's going to be a busy Summer.

Charges for holiday home letting agent

I know as a buy-to-let landlord I've always balked at the cost of letting out my property with a letting agent.  The costs of this are between 10 -16% depending on the exact details your opt for and what part of the country.  London as always tends to be more costly.  However, these all pale into insignificance for holiday rentals.  I've just looked at the costs through the agent I've have ended up with (it's a long story) holiday cottages and my gross rent for a week has been whittled down from £440 to £312.66 that works out at a whopping 29%.  Ridiculous particularly when all they do is provide an internet platform and contact service for the holiday home owners.  They don't conduct any of the viewings or day to day management...that's all left to the owners.  What makes it even more untenable is that to the cost through Airbnb is 3%...yes just 3% to be a host.  In fact there is no charge at all to list your holiday home the 3% charge is just to cover the finance charges that they incur from the finance companies for handling the payments.  You can guess what I'll be doing this weekend...registering my new holiday home on Airbnb!

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