Make sure you contact agencies that have a demonstrable ethos of quality and integrity. Excellent reviews in high numbers and awards for their service-level are two very good signs that you are dealing with an agency you can trust. Speak to people currently with the agency to gauge their opinion of the team. We will always be happy to share reviews and real customer experiences of our service with you.
Ask where the particular strengths of each agency you engage with lie. Our team is multi-award winning at property cleaning and maintenance. We have been voted best cleaning/service company the past two years running in Scotland’s Business Awards. Awards like these, give our clients confidence that their properties will be protected, maintained and presented to the highest possible standard.
Voted Best Service and Best Cleaning company in Scotland (2021, 2022).
By being locally based, Premier Stays is able to provide a face to face service for our property owners and guests – As well as being the eyes and ears on the ground for those who live at a distance from their investment properties.
Along with local knowledge, services should be based on many years of property experience and excellent partnerships with both guests and owner networks.
As a local holiday lettings agency, Premier Stays has significant experience in the marketing, promotion and management of self catering properties in our area. We rely on the goodwill and trust we have built up with clients over many years to succeed and thrive in our market.
Wherever in the world you are looking to invest in a holiday let, always feel free to ask a local agency to share their expertise and knowledge of seasonal booking options with you, or offer marketing tips that you can use. Once you start working with them, a good agent should be happy to share their knowledge with you to help you find, and then let out your property more successfully.
If you can’t find an investment property in the area you’re looking for, rental agents manage a portfolio of properties and can help you with your needs. They know the area very well and are in the property loop locally, which helps them to find the right solution for each client.
While they can’t promise to find the perfect investment for you, they will have naturally done the bulk of the work by finding out who’s offering what, and where, which areas are the most popular and which properties are selling fast.
At Premier Stays, we provide a hand picked selection of properties with a particular focus on customer care. If you are considering investment in Fife property, or letting out your home, we would be only too happy to discuss market opportunities with you.
Do feel free to contact us if this is something we can assist you with. We cover an area stretching from the Home of Golf, St Andrews, at the very top of the East Neuk of Fife, right down the coast to Elie. It includes a stretch of coastline punctuated by picturesque fishing villages such as Kingsbarns, Crail, St Monans, Anstruther and Pittenweem.
Also note, most holiday lettings agencies offer a surprisingly diverse array of services beyond what is shown on their website. They often deal with very different volumes of rentals, sales, and long-term holiday rentals, including the various licenses and permits required to rent residential and holiday lets. They may even help you to find properties to buy or sell. Start the conversation with them early on, in order to best inform the options and choices open to you.
They will likely provide key collection and storage and/or cleaning services to their customers. In general, unlike an estate agent, a holiday rental property management company must make sure that they consistently find new or repeat guests, organise cleaning between each booking, meet and greet guests, and so on.
The reality is that most holiday lettings agencies will provide a service that takes the main demands of advertising, check-in and check-out, inventory, issues with guest bookings and management to name just a few, off your hands. Ask about the different levels of service they offer and their pricing structures for each to see where and how they might add most value for you.
Local lettings companies are great at what they do and provide a valuable service around holiday lettings, but generally don’t always manage the property between fill cycles when the property is vacant – so do check.
They will routinely take care of time-consuming tasks such as professional property photography, copywriting, as well as creating and managing an online presence for your holiday rental.
The extra booking and intelligent digital marketing support an agency can provide means your property is more likely to be occupied throughout the year. This also means thieves are less likely to target your property if you are not able to visit it regularly. If you are at a distance, then sourcing a reputable local agency is a must.
If you’re nearby, good with people and enjoy the idea of a hands-on approach to holiday rentals (like personally hosting guests upon arrival), self-managing your property will give you many opportunities to ensure maximum guest engagement, with you as host.
The choice is difficult, so it may be worth seeking advice from agencies and owners who have tried both approaches before making a final decision on how best to manage your rental.
A good holiday lettings agent will also make sure that they are up to date with the current legislation regarding holiday rentals. This is always valuable and offers peace of mind as public policies change.
Finally, Premier Stays has a simple-to-use website to allow you to visualise your rental advert and bookings calendar with ease. Our close knit team is always on the end of the phone or email to discuss your requirements in more detail. You can rely on our expertise to proactively handle as many of the complexities of holiday rental management that we have discussed in this article as you wish us to.
You’ll find that most agencies offer partially or fully managed services, and much more besides, for an additional fee, depending on what you require. We’d be delighted to speak with you here at Premier Stays about the services we provide in the picturesque East Neuk of Fife in Scotland. We hope you found this article helpful as you consider investing in the holiday lettings business and partnering with a holiday lettings agency in order to achieve your property’s full potential.
The very best of luck in all your holiday-letting endeavours!
All the team at Premier Stays Fife