Holiday Houses

Graingrower

Graingrower

Some time back, while holidaying at Tathra, the thought of buying a holiday house entered my head. The idea is that you have self contained accomodation with all your fishing, boating and sports equipment all on site so you can pack your clothes and head up quickly and cheaply. Then when I started thinking more it seemed like an expensive luxury and you would have to rent it out to make it worthwhile. Some other problems are maintenance and security, also you are locked into going to the same place for a holiday every year.

Does anyone have any experience with owning and/or renting out holiday houses. I'd guess you'd have a PM to look after it, do they arrange bookings and advertising? How do you know that they are going to advertise your house as much as they might advertise someone elses? With so many tenants, how do you know it's going to be looked after?
 
The problem is that whenever you want to go on a holiday (Christmas, Easter etc) that's when other people will also want to rent it out...
 
Aaron_C said:
The problem is that whenever you want to go on a holiday (Christmas, Easter etc) that's when other people will also want to rent it out...
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Which didn't used to be a problem until the kids started school. It must frustrate the tourism industry that everyone has their holidays at the same time.
 
Graingrower said:
Which didn't used to be a problem until the kids started school. It must frustrate the tourism industry that everyone has their holidays at the same time.
Click to expand...

That's why they staggered the school holidays between states many years ago. ;) (apart from Christmas which is a bit hard to move around :))
 
We know lots of older people who have sold their holiday houses as they were sick of spending part of their time mowing, cleaning and general mantainance when on leave.

Keeping that in mind, we brought an inexpensive unit 90 minutes from Sydney, 200m beach and lake and 500m to a neighbourhood shopping centre.

Eventually, it will be used as a weekender for us only. At the moment, it rents at a yield of 7.6% so happy with the purchase.
 
chilliblue said:
We know lots of older people who have sold their holiday houses as they were sick of spending part of their time mowing, cleaning and general mantainance when on leave.
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The only people who can afford a holiday house are those who can afford to hire a gardener to do all that stuff.
 
About to sell mine!

I have one which I own outright (bought it many years ago for the cost of a 4WD).

I have a big mortgage on my PPOR, so to me it makes no sense to keep it given that I don't expect much capital growth from it in the next decade.

What previous posters have said is true: the only time you want to use it is the very time when you can actually get some income from it. And unfortunately renting out a holiday house is a major PAIN. You have to remove all your personal belongings including food, launder all the mattress protectors etc between guests, clean the place so that it's immactulate, etc. And then the guests damage the property and insist it wasn't them.

The agents who organise rentals take about 17% but I still think it's worth using them.

At times I've rented it out permanently, but tenants have tended to trash it, and the repairs cost more than the rent.

If it's a long-term strategy it could be worth doing, but do your sums. It may be smarter just to hire a place each year.
 
I have a holiday home and i love it. We live in Aspendale about 10mins walk to the beach. The holiday home is in the High country in a town called Goughs Bay on the banks of Lake Eildon about 20mins from Mansfield. Its about a 2 and a half hour drive up Eastlink and via Ringwood and Yea and Bonnie Doon.

I bought it 3 years ago when the lake was at 20%. Now its 98%. The water was about 1.5km from my home and now its 300m.

I use stayz to rent it. Its also with a local holiday agency but they have not done much.

They say its not a good investment. But to me its just a part of my whole property portfolio. But its a lifestyle investment funded by the taxman and my other properties. The property is available for rental all the time and i get the garden done and the place cleaned after each rental. When we use it we clean it ourselves.

I dont care how much we do or dont use it. When i semi-retire it would be great to have the city and country home. We love it up at Mansfield and its only 40mins to Mt Buller.

I got my boat licence a few weeks ago and am now looking at getting a tinnie and maybe a jetski when the kids are older.

We have a separate cupboard in the house for our private stuff and a locked shed under the house.

If your interested, I can send the stayz url
 
My sis-in-law has a "holiday house" at Lake Eucumbene, which was a dump when they bought it, but renovated it right up - 4 bed/2bath/spa/dble gge/fireplace etc.

They get pretty consistant bookings both summer (trout fishing) and winter (skiing) and a lot of repeat business.

She lives only 5 doors away so self manages and cleans ... and it throws off plenty of cash, but the cleaning can get a drag as tenants sometimes leave the place in a "clean" mess (spag bol etc).

At the returns, I'd be keen at owning a couple down there that she also managed - but hubby's not interested.

I think like any investment, the secret is not to buy what "you" want, but rather buy what rents well and consistantly ... holiday home or not.

People I know had a couple of holiday homes in Hawks Nest (lovely spot), but asides from 10 weeks a year (Christmas and Easter) the place is deader than dead and the houses are expensive ... which suits us because we have rele's there and it's realy nice when the tourists all go home. The people sold out as they made a horrific loss year after year.
 
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My family has owned a house on the Mornington peninsula for 35 years. I was about 16 when my parents bought it and loved going down there every weekend. At about 18 I loved going down there but was rapt when they werent there and it was just my mates and I going surfing and trying to pickup at the local. Skipping ahead to when i first got married we used to go down heaps, when the kids were first born still heaps, now the kids are 7+ we dont have time and only rarely head down that way to see my parents specifically.
I think if I owned one now it would never get used as we have stacks on during the WE with the kids etc. Friends or ours have just sold their Sorrento house for the same reason.
 
A Melbourne colleague and I (I'm from Sydney) were discussing ideal places to live and we came up with the following:

1) PPOR-1 in Sydney near the harbour or beaches
2) PPOR-2 in Melbourne around the top of the Bay (ie Middle Park) for the restaurants
3) Holiday house in Adelaide (or Glenelg, Largs Bay etc) on the Gulf. Or maybe North Adelaide, or both.

Such simple tastes, so easy to please.
 
vaughan said:
1) PPOR-1 in Sydney near the harbour or beaches
2) PPOR-2 in Melbourne around the top of the Bay (ie Middle Park) for the restaurants
3) Holiday house in Adelaide (or Glenelg, Largs Bay etc) on the Gulf. Or maybe North Adelaide, or both.

Such simple tastes, so easy to please.
Click to expand...

such deep wallets :D
 
vaughan said:
A Melbourne colleague and I (I'm from Sydney) were discussing ideal places to live and we came up with the following:

1) PPOR-1 in Sydney near the harbour or beaches
2) PPOR-2 in Melbourne around the top of the Bay (ie Middle Park) for the restaurants
3) Holiday house in Adelaide (or Glenelg, Largs Bay etc) on the Gulf. Or maybe North Adelaide, or both.

Such simple tastes, so easy to please.
Click to expand...

So:

1) $10m
2) $6m
3) ?????
 
I've always wanted to buy a holiday home. When younger we camped down at Walkerville in Gippsland, VIC. Some friends had a house at Sandy Point, so we soon started staying with them. Was great, 15 minute walk to the beach etc as a teenager.

I stayed at a relatives caravan down on the 90 Mile Beach last year, loved it. It was for sale, so I promptly bought it. Absolute lifestyle investment. I then started to look into the town more, identified some good opportunity for capital growth in the future. Unfortunately, with the caravan park being DSE owned - no capital growth. Just a lease and a depreciating asset which would have to be removed on completion of the lease!

Long story short, I bought and rennovated a 50's Fibro part-time between April and October last year. Sold the caravan. I worked out with tax deductions I needed a 6K income from the house in Holiday Rents annually, to equal the same out of pocket cost as the annual fees for the park ($3500).

We listed on Stayz in November, have now had a total of 40 nights of stays over December/January, and taken $7K! We've still got Easter on top of 10 more months to find additional revenue. No property Manager - just Stayz. Admin is minimal, their systems are good.

It's true, you can't use the house on the main holidays you want to. BUT I can basically take income from the house and go and have a holiday anywhere I want whenever I want. Obviously also nulliffying the argument of not wanting to go to the same place all the time. I have been down in January in a few rare gaps. All has gone well.

I've got a cleaner and a gardener to look after the place for me. 50 bucks a pop each. I'm charging 150 per night off peak, 200 per night peak.

Oh yeah - icing on the cake was my partime rennovation was just revalued by the bank at 50K more than buying and reno costs! :)

My kids are young (Both under 5). I see this as a longterm lifestyle investment that one day I will just keep to myself and use as I feel like it without renting it out (Targeting another 10 years).

Hope this helps!
 
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