For a holiday rental property owner cleaning bills can soon mount up, unless you are careful! Hopefully you will find this article of value. I would really appreciate your comments.
You will be expected to keep your holiday rental property reasonably clean and tidy. The renter will check the fine detail you have placed about this on your advert/web page, and some will challenge you if it is not as advertised. Beware!
Being a fairly new owner myself I made some several blunders in this area which ended up costing me money. For what it is worth I share some money saving tips. Please pass them onto anyone else who would benefit.
1. It is not vital to clean straight after a booking. Indeed as I found out if you have a few weeks between bookings your property will only get dusty again and will need freshening up. If your floors are marble you will get lots of fluff balls. Leave the cleaning until just before your next booking. That way you save money. As a new proud owner we religiously cleaned straight away, cost 30 Euros per basic clean and 40 Euros including patio doors and balcony. So pre and post clean cost 60-80 Euros. If the rental is a short term one, 3-5 days this can really eat into your profits. Flag your dairy to remind you to inform your cleaner just before commencement of the booking.
2. If you use the property yourself make sure you leave it spotless. In other words wherever possible do the final clean yourself! Should you then get a booking following shortly thereafter you might not need to have it cleaned. If the next renter is either family, friends or a repeat customer they will not mind as long as you explain when it was last cleaned. Do however leave them a bottle of wine, cost 3-4 Euros. It works wonders!
3. Ensure you leave the basic for renters to clean the property themselves. If the rental is for a week or more they will want to tidy up themselves for example sweeping the floors and cleaning the toilets and bath or shower. We even leave leather wipes for our leather furniture. That way the renter looks after the place.
4. Do not have too many fussy items around your property such as ornaments. The more you have the more to clean and the higher the cleaning bill will be. Secondly you will use the property for your holidays, you do not want to do too much cleaning do you?
5. Unless you are a. a frequent user of your property and b. someone will water them in you absence, do not have real plants inside your property. The plants will perish and make your property look tatty. We purchased some synthetic plants which look fine.
6. Look after your cleaners and they will look after you, a small tip now and again, a bottle of wine, or sweets for the children will ensure they look after your property as if it were their own
Kevin Gale
Kevin is a director of Click Rent Stay Ltd a UK company specialising in privately owned villa and apartment rentals and ancillary products.
All the products mentioned in the article, namely privately owned villas, apartments, travel insurance and car hire can be found on the Click Rent Stay Ltd web portals namely, http://www.clickrentstay.com and http://www.clickrentstay-golf.com.
Labels: Buying a property abroad
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