Karl SmallmanTHE Rental Property Market Trends 2011 report is the first in a series of detailed months reports produced exclusively by Campaya, the holiday rentals company offering rentals from private home owners and professional agents in one place.
The report looks at a series of Top 5 trends in the market place, looking at favourite destinations, most popular activity holidays for those taking self catering rental holidays, what people are looking for in their rental property home, and what they are packing in their suitcases.
The report, which was constructed from research based on Campays’s own databases, along with a detailed analysis of trends online from numerous websites and blogs, highlights the challenges facing second property owners and holiday rental owners as a result of the changing face of tourism brought on my world events, the financial crisis throughout Europe.
The Report
Campaya is committed to helping its customers to promote their holiday rental property to travellers worldwide, and throughout 2011 has noticed a significant increase in the number of properties being listed for rental and in the type of rental enquiry being made.
More and more second property owners are now looking at rental income to help alleviate the costs on properties that unfortunately they can’t visit as often and/or can’t sell. This is impacting many an expat as well, as often they invested in a second property when they retired with a view to securing a regular income, and they are now suffering with the increased competition.
The tourist market itself is changing as well, with countries like Spain looking to attract visitors from new markets: India and Eastern Europe for example, and while many are still enjoying holidays abroad the demographic is shifting, with those with the disposable income and job security starting to dominate the market.
For years it was ‘good enough’ to furnish your holiday rentals in Spain with ‘off the shelf’ furniture packages and rent them out to holiday makers looking for little more than a roof over their heads and somewhere to change and freshen up from the beach before heading out to the local bars and restaurants.
This is changing as more and more holiday makers are less interested in beach holidays and more interested in activity and cultural based holidays surrounded by levels of luxury equal to, if not better than, at home.
Of course this isn’t just impacting the holiday rental owners, the local businesses are being effected as people opt to stay in and enjoy their holiday rental home more: they want to get more value out of what they are paying for.
The report concentrated very much on trends in an attempt to paint as general a picture of the changing market as possible. The trend is pretty evident: people are still happy to ‘treat themselves’ to a holiday, but they have higher demands than in previous years. For second property owners looking to generate rental income this is both a challenge and an opportunity.
Long gone it seems are the days of furnishing your property with the ‘cheap and cheerful’ furniture package offerings that we have seen in recent years. Customers want individuality, thought, creativity and quality. They want to feel that they are living in a ‘home’, where they have the same, or ideally better facilities than at home, that the day to day tasks such as preparing food, keeping the apartment clean aren’t harder than at home, and that when they want to chill out whether it be by the pool or in front of the TV they can do so in comfort.
Undeniably this means spending more on furnishing your rental property than before, and in many cases it won’t mean that you get a higher rental as the supply still exceeds the demand, but it will improve your chances and the key to remember is that the market operates like most successful markets i.e. on word of mouth: satisfied clients tell their friends and families, holiday photos and videos get passed around and posted online showcasing your property.
Make it desirable, make it affordable and market it properly and you have a good chance of making some money out of your holiday home investment.
