Listing your property with Cairns Holiday Homes

 (Please note - we do not manage the upkeep and cleaning of holiday homes but we do manage enquiries and bookings that come through the website. Listing a home includes photography and copywriting.)

History of Cairns Holiday Homes

We began Cairns Holiday Homes in 2005 for 2 reasons:

1. To advertise our beach cottage that we hoped to rent out when we were not using it.
2. We did not want to place the cottage with a real estate agent for long term rental because good tenants are hard to find.

Placing your property with an agent for long term rental you have found that:

• The wear and tear is a constant in long term tenancies because most tenants have not owned their own property and do not take the same care as you would.

• Small problems which are not reported can turn into big and very expensive repairs.

• Property managers do not always 'manage' your property in your best interests.

There are advantages in taking an active role in managing your property investment:

• Most holiday rentals are for 1-2 weeks only so you get your home back regularly.  Small problems can be taken care of almost immediately.

• A well maintained holiday home is always ready to sell at a moment’s notice. Many investors are attracted by properties which have forward bookings. In the case of a sale to a buyer who does not want to rent out as a holiday house, the problem of existing bookings can be dealt with by forward planning.

• The holiday home market is very competitive so you must present your home in the best possible manner – clean, well equipped and very functional.  Short term tenants tend to take care of a well presented home – especially if they have been welcomed by the owner and have paid a bond.

• We aim for a weekly rental of 3-4 times what an unfurnished house on a 6-12 month tenancy earns per week. This may seem a lot but you have the cost of furniture, bed linen, laundry, cleaning, electricity, internet provision, pool & garden maintenance and periods outside school holidays and during the wet season when you might not have bookings.

The disadvantages of short term rental are outweighed by the return:

• Costs are much higher, as indicated above, along with with commission and listing costs but overall we expect an annual return of 10-25% better than a long term tenancy.

• Running a holiday home is an active business rather than a passive investment.

Managing your home investment

1. You would like a better return on investment to pay the mortage, to provide extra income for your family and for house maintenance.
2. You prefer not to leave the management of your investment entirely in the hands of someone else.
3. Keeping on top of maintenance is difficult with long term tenants because of access problems.
4. You would like to try short term holiday home rental but are worried about dealing with customer enquiries and finding the time to do so.
5. You are anxious about the cost of getting photographs done, witing a listing description and doing the set-up up on a listing site like AirBnB.
6. There are so many listing sites and you are unsure which ones to use.

We do the listing and manage enquiries and bookings for you: 

• No need to worry about photographs or writing the description copy for listing on Cairns Holiday Homes website. We do it all for you.

• We create your listing page on our website with a calendar to show availability and an online booking facility.

• We can also set you up on other websites and manage those enquiries for you as well.

On Cairns Holiday Homes website:

• You are protected by a comprehensive Terms and Conditions agreement between you and your guest customer.

• Payment goes directly to you as we do not hold deposit, final balance or security deposit payments.

• We do not charge a booking service fee to the guest but we do charge you a commission on every booking.

• Bookings are on a 24 hr online request basis so that we can check with the customer for their guest numbers and to make sure that they are not planning a party. In practice, we would usually screen and accept a booking within a few hours.

• We are available 12 hrs a day, 7 days a week to deal with all customer questions and queries.

You are already listed on a major listing site like Stayz or AirBnB but find that:

• You are not as visible as you would like to be because of the number of other listings.

• The large site is listing hotels and motels as well as holiday homes.

• The cancellation policy is too favourable to the customer who booked months ago and cancelled 3 weeks before arrival. That period was blocked to anyone else and now you have little chance of getting a last minute booking. You are not like a hotel with a large inventory of rooms. Your inventory is just one house and you have lost income.

• The listing site holds onto the payment until the guest has arrived.

• You have a busy job and it is hard to respond promptly to customer enquiries and questions.

Contact us now to find out more about listing with Cairns Holiday Homes  

Ph: 07-40452143          email: email/enquiries)(cairnsholidayhomes.com.au