Owner Case Study: Making an Income from Holiday Letting

Fraser Anderson and his brother Raurie own 4 Masons Court, which forms part of the oldest residential house in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The property, which is over 500 years old and Grade II* listed, also picked up the gold award for Best Historic Holiday Property in the Sykes Gem Awards in 2018.

Both working full-time and running their property as an investment, the owners wanted help with the day-to-day admin, marketing and pricing, with experts continually monitoring prices throughout the year, to get them the best return in-line with customer demand.

1. Did the property require work before you could let it as a holiday home? How much did this cost?

The property had been empty for 2-3 years so it suffered with damp and needed quite a lot of renovation to bring it up to scratch. We stripped out the kitchen and bathroom, replaced the carpets and knocked down some of the walls to make it open plan. We bought it in April 2017 for £174,000, we invested about £20k into the conversion and it took a few months to complete.

2. What was the reason you chose to holiday let with an agency?

We wanted to work with an agency, as we knew it would mean less hassle, and thought we could get more bookings and a better income that way. We both have full-time jobs so it saves us a lot of time and energy in dealing with the day-to-day with customer queries, marketing and pricing of the property.

3. Why did you choose to let with Sykes Cottages?

My parents had a great experience letting their property with Sykes, which is why we chose to work with them. We did think about Airbnb but we felt there was too much competition on there and that the Sykes brand was a better fit for what we wanted the property to be and the customers we wanted to attract.

4. What is your experience of using Sykes Cottages?

The local Property Consultant, Rachel, came out before we even started work on the property and it was great to see how impressed she was, even at that stage. She gave us advice on what we could do to appeal to holidaymakers, and visited us again to see how we were getting on.

Sykes are very helpful and provide us with the support we need. We started off doing the cleaning ourselves to save money, but soon realised it took up too much time and was more efficient to employ a cleaner, which Sykes also helped us arrange.

5. Are you happy with how Sykes manage the pricing of your property? Do you feel confident in having an expert changing the pricing?

We are very happy with how Sykes manages the pricing of our property. Having fluctuating prices mean that we can make sure we maximise the occupancy rates of the cottage as well as secure bookings at an increased price.

We do not have the time or expertise ourselves to regularly review and analyse prices and we have always been confident with the Sykes pricing gained from bookings. I do occasionally compare our prices with competitors and I am always pleased with how we compare.

6. You’ve chosen Full Income Maximisation, which means Sykes can increase your pricing without limit, or decrease it by up to 10% – how do you find this benefits your property?

We opted for Full Income Maximisation to boost our bookings, ensuring the cottage has the best possible occupancy levels, which means we can maximise the amount of revenue we are getting.

We have been very happy with this pricing approach, and along with accepting short breaks, we feel it has led us to receiving an increased number of bookings.

For more information on Full Income Maximisation, take a look at our article on how to price your holiday home.

7. What do you enjoy most about holiday letting?

It is great to meet new people and see them enjoying the property that we’ve spent so much time and effort converting. But, as the property was always designed to be an investment for us, it’s great to see it become a brilliant little money-earner, being full for most of the year.