OWNER MANAGED PROPERTIES

About Weekly Home

Weekly Home is a well-established company providing top-quality short let accommodation in Oxford and the surrounding area. Our customers include visiting academics, corporate visitors on short-term contracts, and holiday visitors.

Our short lets vary from a minimum of one week to several months or more, but two weeks is the average length of stay.

Despite the credit crunch, our business has grown significantly in recent years and we are looking for new properties to meet the demand from enquirers.

Owners with Weekly Home have three options. You can manage your own property, for which our rental commission is 15%.  Alternatively, the properties can be fully managed by us for a  rental commission of 35%. Owners who choose the fully managed option are usually unable to do their own management because they do not live near enough to the property or are too busy. The third option is to lease your property to us on a shorthold tenancy basis and we will then short let it through Weekly Home.

This document explains how we work with owners who wish to manage their own properties.

The owner’s responsibilities where the property is owner managed

• Owners have to ensure that apartments are well-presented: well-furnished, smartly decorated and well-equipped to a standard which executive visitors would be happy with.

• We require wi-fi internet connection in all our apartments.

• Owners have to maintain the property and garden.

• Owners have to check guests into the apartment and out of the apartment (although many are happy to allow guests to just post their keys back through the door on departure).

• Owners are responsible for all utility bills during guests’ stay, including gas, electricity, water etc. The exception is outgoing phone calls, if the property has a phone, which the guest is expected to pay.

• Owners have to provide all linen and towels for guests, and a weekly change of laundry for these items.

• Owners have to deal with any problems that arise during a guest’s stay. Guests contact owners directly if e.g. an appliance breaks down, there is a leak etc.

Weekly Home’s responsibilities

• We advertise the property on our website and elsewhere. We ensure that the property is marketed as effectively as possible. We have an extensive and growing customer base, with many repeat bookings from customers who are very happy with the quality of the accommodation and the level of service we provide.

• We deal with the large amount of enquiries that come in by email and phone, doing our best to convert these into bookings.

• We process the bookings and take all payments, sending out all necessary documents to guests and owners using up-to-date software designed for short lets.

• We liaise with customers to tailor the booking to their needs and organise the check-in meeting between the owner and the guest.

• We ensure owners receive payment several days before the guest arrives.

• We take a security deposit with each booking to cover damages and other costs (e.g. extra cleaning). Such costs are deducted from the guest’s deposit before refunding, and paid to the owners.

• We charge a commission of 15%, which is low compared to other local agencies. At present we are not registered for VAT.

Why choose short lets?

It is worth bearing the following points in mind when considering short lets.

Short let ownership requires quite a lot of work and generally requires owners to be nearby in order to carry out check-ins, usually at weekends, and respond to any problems that arise.

Rental rates are much higher than for long lets (but still compare favourably with hotel rates, from the guest’s point of view). However, on the other side the owner has to allow for utility bills, council tax and agency commission when making a comparison. Look at our website to get an idea of the rates we charge for different-sized properties in different areas: www.weeklyhome.com.

Occupancy is the key factor in how profitable it is to short let a property. Unfortunately it is difficult to predict and we cannot guarantee a specific occupancy level.  Properties need to achieve approximately a 65% occupancy level in order to match the income owners could get from a long let. Where the occupancy starts to go above 70% and higher, short let becomes more profitable than long let and many of our properties achieve this. Obviously, good occupancy depends on the quality of the accommodation and the location. Bookings are also very price-sensitive, especially at the moment, and as a general rule, cheaper rates and good value for money produce higher occupancy.
 
The clear advantages of short lets over long lets include the following:

• better rental return for the right property in the right location;
• the owner keeps much more control over the property than is the case with a long let;
• there is less wear and tear on the property;
• owners can have access to the property if they want to use it at certain times of the year.

In our experience we would say that the following are important to maximise occupancy:

• The owner needs to be easily contactable by email and respond quickly to enquiries about availability.
• The owner needs to have a strong customer service ethic, maintaining properties to a good level and responding efficiently to any issues that arise during guests’ stay.
• The basics of check-ins and check-outs and laundry changes have to be managed efficiently.

We aim to offer an excellent service to both owners and guests. We'd certainly be interested in talking to you and viewing your property. This is actually a very busy time of year for us so if you are interested in joining us, the sooner the better.

Please get in touch by email, info@weeklyhome.com, or phone our lettings team on 01993 811711. The best time to phone is a weekday morning, 9am-1pm.