The Reality of Holiday Letting

The Reality of Holiday Letting

Our approach to the reality of Holiday letting encourages owners to have a realistic expectation (based on our 25 years of experience) of what it means to make money from allowing people you don’t know into your house. If you're unsure that you can accept these concepts (listed below), we would encourage you to consider whether Holiday Letting is for you.
  1. The reduction in availability of your home for your own use
    1. The management of your own bookings is possible through the Owners Portal, where you have access to book up to 24 months in advance (while guests can book up to 12 months in advance)
  1. We know that approximately 80% of Guests will leave your home well, 10% will leave it cleaner than you would yourself, and that leaves 10% that don’t leave your home as tidy/clean as we would hope. It is the cleaner's job to bring your home back up to the level we expect and ready for the next Guest.
  1. The requirement to book (in advance) any visit to your home as an Owner’s Booking (if staying overnight) or as an email to let us know (if you’re dropping in)
  1. The necessity to check (with us) if you can use your home at the last minute
    1. often the answer will be “yes”, sometimes it may be “the home is not yet clean, can you delay your trip by a few hours/until tomorrow”
  1. How your home is presented – guests move things around, and cleaners may not move them back to where you had them placed. This can include cushions, small furniture, kitchen appliances, etc.
  1. Service people (or Guests) may come and go from your home at all hours.
    1. This could be a cleaner dropping off linen that they’ve washed, a Tradie dropping in to do work, etc
    2. We won’t necessarily inform you every time someone is going past your home, and in some cases, we won’t be aware (with the example of a cleaner dropping off linen, etc.)
  1. Wear & tear, as well as attrition over time (through accidental breakage/loss) of items like small crockery, cutlery and linen, and which costs can/can’t be claimed from guests (for more detail, see Claiming Funds from Guests)
  1. Some occasional expenses that are unrecoverable from guests for various reasons including that they were not obvious (and therefore not picked up by the cleaner) or there is some question as to who is responsible for the the missing item/damage (for more detail, see Unrecoverable Expenses).
One of the key issues listed above is our requirement that you ALWAYS book in a stay at your home (48h+ in advance) or let us know via email if you’re going down for the day – 24h+ in advance of you arriving at your home. We understand this can be an inconvenience, but it’s a key feature of the reality of holiday rental and in order for us to manage your home effectively, we feel it is reasonable to be made aware of your trips/visits.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s)

In the 24+ years we’ve been managing holiday rentals, some of the common comments/questions we get are:

“I’ve discovered that my electricity usage was high, when my home was vacant”

One of the (many) items that cleaners check when cleaning your home is that heaters etc are all turned off. It may be possible that one is missed, or that it was on a timer and therefore not ‘on’ when the cleaner went through your home. We would recommend that all owners avail themselves of the various Apps that utility companies make available, that allows you to monitor power usage and investigate as needed.

“I’ve come to my home, and it’s not clean, even though guests checked out 4-5 days ago”

The key issue here (for us) is that the cleaner and we didn’t know you were coming. For various reasons, your cleaner may not have your home ‘guest ready’, even if the previous booking has checked out 4-5 days earlier. Examples of when this can happen are following a long weekend/key event in the area (such as Moto GP). Typically, all homes are booked for these periods, but not all are booked for the following weekend.

Cleaners prioritise cleaning those homes that are booked soonest, so if your home is empty the following weekend, it may not have been cleaned, even if guests checked out many days before. Cleaners are expected to do a security check of your home if they are not planning to clean it within 48 - 72h of guests check out. This will ensure your home is secure, there is no damage/issue to report, heating/cooling is turned off etc, and your home will then be cleaned at the soonest opportunity.

“I’ve come to my home and there is a remote control missing from the TV/Aircon”

Remote controls can go missing – 95% of the time they turn up under a couch cushion, in a drawer, etc. Guests can put them in the most obscure places! If they are reported missing, we will follow up with the most recent guests to try and find them. Please note, these are a perfect example of something that cleaners may not notice in their usual check of a home (see Holiday Home Cleaning and Cleaning Standards document below for more detail). There are scenarios where they can’t be found and will need to be replaced (at your cost), and this is part of the expected costs of having a holiday rental (see Expected Running Costs for more detail).

“I’ve come to my home and there seems to be some linen missing”

There are two main reasons why the quantity of linen at your home may be less than it was when you set up the home:

  1. As per the T&C’s you signed when joining our group, the cleaner may have some linen offsite to wash it. If you let us know what appears to be missing, we can check with the cleaner if they have any linen at home/the laundromat. This is usually the answer for the significant number of enquiries we get from owners re linen.
  1. Over time there is an inevitable attrition to linen quantities at your home (see Linen for more detail). This can occur for many reasons:

o   Guests may inadvertently take some home. Cleaners (and guests) regularly bring this to our attention, and we facilitate the return of linen if we are advised this has occurred.

o   Guests may mark/stain linen beyond the ability of the cleaner to remove the stains.

 Ensuring that there is zero attrition to linen quantities is not something we (or the cleaner) are able to guarantee, and we encourage owners to budget for linen replenishment / replacement on a regular basis.




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