Holiday home in Mayo/Sligo: how many weeks typically would it be rented out p.a. ?

I am considering buying a 4-bed holiday home in the Mayo / Sligo area, close to the beach, nice house, usual facilities, etc. The rent for such a home in the summer months seems to average around €500, falling to about €250 per week off season.

Does anyone know, typically, how many weeks per year such homes are let for? (In other words, how many idle weeks with no rental income would I need to budget for?)

Thanks in advance for any replies.

We have a rented holiday home in sligo and it is let from April to September. No point in doing it during the winter as you will generally get just weekenders.

Hi,
If its in a reasonable location you will rent it out for all of July and August. I reckon you will get 2 or 3 weeks for june and september. You can forget it for the rest of the year apart from a week at xmas and a week at easter.
nbc

forget it would be my advice. this season is a disaster with most houses vacant all summer in enniscrone. had considered one a few years back but thankfully I looked beyond the tax write off and bought in spain which rents 45 weeks per year.
also be aware that these holiday homes deteriorate big time over a rough winter by the sea and there are significant maintenance costs.
I would say only buy a holiday home for personal/retirement use.

markowitzman said:

forget it would be my advice. this season is a disaster with most houses vacant all summer in enniscrone.

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A member of my family has a holiday home in Westport and has reported that it's been occupied for most of the Summer. Indeed, hotel/guest house accomodation has been hard to come by in Westport.

westport is benefiting from the water problems in galway.
what nett yield is the house in westport achieving?

'forget it would be my advice. this season is a disaster with most houses vacant all summer in enniscrone. had considered one a few years back but thankfully I looked beyond the tax write off and bought in spain which rents 45 weeks per year.
also be aware that these holiday homes deteriorate big time over a rough winter by the sea and there are significant maintenance costs.
I would say only buy a holiday home for personal/retirement use. '


I would agree entirely with the above poster.

I run a taxi business in Mayo and am up and down to Enniscrone quite a lot as its only a few miles from where I live.

I have been living in the West of Ireland for some years now and I think this year has been the worst for a long time as regards tourists visiting apart from the last few weeks. I know two people who run bed and breakfast in Ballina and prior to July business was very slow.

Enniscrone is a beautiful place but it is dependent on tourists as in the winter it is a dead town and even a lot of the bed and breakfasts close down entirely during winter. This last month of July has been atrocious weatherwise. I was even saying this to a customer one evening and they agreed they said they never saw Enniscrone so quiet as this summer. The only night that I see people out and about is Saturday.

A lot of people will stay for instance in Ballina which is about 7 miles away from Enniscrone and they go up to Enniscrone mainly for the golf.

There are some beautiful properties there for sale and it is a place that I would consider living myself. Beautiful beach, top class golf course, lovely new hotel etc. But I would not be buying a property to rent. Buy a property by all means for your own use - you never know the way things are with property at the moment if you hold out for a bit you might get a bargain.

I notice another poster mentioning Westport - another lovely spot in Mayo but this is an entirely different area. Westport is a busy town and attracts quite a lot of tourists all year round and there is plenty to see and do there. I was there recently playing golf and the scenery is breath taking. Totally different place to Enniscrone which is a seaside town and naturally is dependent on the weather.

Good luck with your decision

Re Westport, there is a very well managed agency there that already owns a lot of the holiday house rentals (atlantic coast holiday homes) in town. They rent out their houses as Winter Lets (Sept-May) at about 160 a week for a 4-bed. In summer they rent out at around 650+ a week. In the estate we were in as winter tenants a good few of the other houses were vacant all winter, except the odd rowdy hen/stag party rental at bank holiday weekends. However if you have the time/money to invest in marketing your property constantly via internet/newspaper ads, hire cleaning lady to do the changeover, odd job person to do repairs etc you should be able to fill it during the summer, it's not the kind of thing you can run easily from a distance.

I can vouch for Atlantic Coast Holiday Homes - they managed a property for me for several years and were very good.

That said, the costs associated with holiday lets really eat into the rental income - cleaning, heavier wear & tear, commission, Bord Failte registration - the list goes on and on. The result is nett rental income on a holiday home will be less than a property let long-term and income will be less certain.

Suffice it to say I have sold that property. My advice is if you want a holiday home buy one, if you want an investment property buy that, but do not confuse the two issues. (I only bought the above property because it was one of the few ways of getting investment mortgage interest relief post-Bacon report 1, which no longer applies.)