like a holiday mobile, also appeals to me. Might use it sometimes, but mainly i view it as an investment opportunity,

Hi CiderMonster,

If you mean like mobile home(caravan) on a holiday park, then I dont think this is a good investment idea. The vans cost about £15,000 at the bottom end upto £60,000 (not exhaustive) You also have site fees (£1500 pa minimum) and energy bills to consider. These vans do NOT hold value. for example a new van bought for £15,000 in May, offered £10,000 sale value (buy back) in November same year. You may see a benefit if you make use of it personally however it needs to be let for a large portion of the season to make ANY profit for you.
Also some sites do not allow you to rent your caravan, or it has to go through them......

This is my experience, others may tell a different story.

Good luck

Hi, we have a touring caravan which we love using, and we have been thinking lately about buying a newer one to hire out. It seems to be such a popular holiday occupation nowadays that we thought maybe people would hire rather than go to the trouble and expense of buying and storing. Does anyone know if this would be a viable proposition? Also, how much could we reasonably charge per week?

.......we briefly considered the idea of a static caravan as a possible way of combining holiday use with some useful additional income from renting out.......I say briefly, because it didn't take long to find some major disadvantages - not just the obvious ones like high site fees, high runing costs in the cooler months due to poor insulation, but also the fact that a lot of static sites are quite strict about no sub-letting ; and we found that buried deep in the small print was reference to the fact that, in order to maintain high standards, a maximum period of 10 years before the 'van had to be removed or replaced......
.....so in the end we decided against that idea, and instead took the plunge and reverted to our original grand plan and bought a property in the sun...... as you can see below........

Funnily enough.....

When my mum and dad go to Tenerife in October, that is one place that i have given him strict instructions to check out! Have already been looking at studios over there......i take it you highly recommend it?

briar, since my post, we`ve been talking to someone who rents out a static van, and she told us such a tale of how messy it gets left by people that it`s definitely put me off. Going back to what you said, it hadn`t occurred to me about towing weights. Anyway, the idea has now been shelved.

I know it`s nothing to do with buying caravans, but my daughter used to clean chalets at Butlins at Skegness, and she used to say she hated to think of how people lived at home, after the way they used to leave the chalets, some even used the floor as a toilet!! I think we`ve made the right decision about renting out a van.

.....Cider Monster.......yes, if rental income is important then somewhere with a year long "season" is the obvious choice. We were priced out of mainland spain "costas" - about 2 years too late !
......and when you are using it yourself while the rest of europe is in the middle of winter, then the idea of a cold caravan is less appealing.......
Any help or advice freely given - theres also lots of info in the Tenerife/Expats/Private Apartments sections of this forum.

Thanks Sunowner, i might be in touch via PM in the next couple of days with a few questions, any help would be much appreciated. I have looked around, and i think we can definitely afford a studio (i had looked in Los Cristianos) and the things that tempted us were the fact that it has an all year round climate.....good for an investment return! Also, as i design websites as a hobby, i have no qualms about building a site to help 'plug' it, but i obviously still need to do a lot more research into it!

I looked at the costa prices too, when we were in the costa brava, very expensive considering the shorter season......tenerife does seem the best place for us!

Funnily enough we stay quite regularly in a static van in East Anglia and have several times looked at the "for sale" vans they have. Though they are very nicely laid out and smart, we were shocked at how expensive they were, (need to spend about £45-50K for a decent sized one) and the pitch/site maintenance costs were IMHO exhorbitant at £1750pa - when the site is only open Easter-October !!

I didn't get as far as checking how much it would cost to get the cleaning done weekly (at a rough guess I would expect £15pw for a cleaner for a couple of hours each Saturday between lets - maybe more if you are tied to using the site's cleaners!!) The other problem would be our need to let the van in the narrow "peak season", which is also the same rather condensed period that ourselves, family & friends would want to use it. to be honest, apart from Easter, the van is really only likely to be in demand between mid-may and the end of September which is about 20 weeks. The maintenance/cleaning costs alone would therefore be in the region of £100 per letting week, and start adding in depreciation (very rapid) and the fact that the van only has a useful life of 10 years ....................

We opted for a 3 bed apartment in El Gouna, Egypt with a shared pool which has an annual maintenance bill of less than £300 and year round access - with very low living costs etc while you are there. Can get the place professionally cleaned and laundry all done every week for less than the annual maintenance cost of the van. It was a bit of a no-brainer in the end!!!

hi we had static at a well known holiday village
nightmare
we hardly used it
rented out but was never cleaned properly by cleaners with are paid from the rental money you get
some people do not appreciate other peoples property
this van cost A LOT
we decided to sell as more hastle than it was worth
we HAD to sell back to park un less selling to relation I.e. had to be father sister immediate family also had to prove who the were
or had to remove van from site and it is difficult to another site
anyway the van had depreciated by 30% in 8 months
this is only my experience

Hi

I've been reading all your comments, if I may, I'm going to put my pennyworth in !

My partner and I have 10 holiday chalets on a site near Great Yarmouth, we've had them six years and have never had any trouble from anyone who has rented them, in fact, we have got regulars that come every year and we get Christmas cards from a lot of our clients !

Although we don't live there, we live in Essex, we leave Essex at 6.00 am every Saturday for a two & half hour journey to the site, we clean them all ourselves with the help of two other ladies and our young "saturday girl" .

With chalets, although they range in price from £16,000 - £20,000 they are a worthwhile investment because they're "bricks and mortar", the value has risen 3 fold since we got our first two in 1999, they were £6000.00 each !

We do all the advertising and bookings ourselves and meet all our customers and settle them in the chalets, explaining everything to them and we say to them, any problems, ring us straightaway, there is then mutual respect between us and them.

Kind regards

Jill

.......sounds like you have a very successful business going there, because you are obviously putting in a lot of time and effort to keep your customers satisfied, well done to you ; but I think that the original intention was for something worthwhile to buy, as an investment, which would need a minimum amount of input; more a hobby, less of a business.

Our satisfied customers are a result of the work put in by our Tenerife agent; our input is minimal ; again, it all boils down to how much involvement you want to have ; no one way is better or worse, just different...wherever your property is, its still soaking up your capital.

Hi Sunowner,

I agree with what you say, ours started off as a hobby, way back in 1999.

John and I were neighbours, my husband had died, at the same time my firm merged with another and they closed our office so I was made redundant, with the princely sum of £14,500 plus a staff mortgage still to pay and my dog to look after !

John's wife had also passed away and we decided to pool what was left of my redundancy, £5000 (the rest had gone on mortgage payments, bills, food) plus his ISA which he had £7000, we went to look at one chalet, when we were walking the dogs we saw another one for sale and decided that we would put the whole £12000 in and buy the two.

We didn't expect that it would take off over the years like it did, eventually, through being partners in this "ever growing" hobby, we realised that we were becoming more than friends, so John sold his place cheaply to his step-son, moved down the road to mine and we invested the money in the chalets, so that in the long run, when my nephews ( I couldn't have kids) and John's grandaughter are old enough and want their own homes, we'll be able to give them a helping hand, as that will be their inheritance.

So out of tragedy, a little ray of sunshine did appear.

Well, good for you; many people don't bounce back up after a knock down.
Perhaps its just me, but.....I find it so facinating how peoples lives can be completely altered, changed, or moved in a different and possibly unexpected direction by good luck/ bad luck/ fate/ destiny/ call it what you will....unfortunately our own little "story" also started with a death.....perhaps this forum should have a philosophy section.......

Hi Sunowner,

I couldn't agree with you more, it is funny how things work out in life isn't it, and yes, we should have a philosophy section on here.

Although I haven't posted much on here, I do read it quite a lot and everyone is so helpful, it just goes to show, that there are people willing to bother about others and give help when needed.

Kind regards

Jill

.......I don't suppose that many people looking at ht forums are into philosophy....but no reason it couldn't be introduced in the general chat section as a topic or thread !.......'cos here seem to be going off the topic....
And, yes, it was the same here.....looked at the forum for months and months while researching property,always lurking in the background soaking up everyone's views and opinions; it wasn't until we finally made a purchase that we finally joined in, and, hopefully, put back in some of the help and advice for others to benefit from.

I think you need to look at it not as an investment but as somewhere to enjoy with your family & friends & to get away from the hussle n bustle of everyday life.
Our van is 3 hours door to door, think about the travelling !!
Myself & my partner have just bought a static van (she's had several over the years & loves the area).
The way we looked at it was how much would you normally spend on holidays every year ? multiply this by say 10 years & ive bought myself a deluxe caravan.
Ive done the round the world holidays to far flung places over the last 20 plus years & due to my health deteriorating have decided its easier to stay in the UK.
I will be letting the van out & hopefully on past experience from my partner she says that people hopefully leave as they find.
Private rentals are far better than renting from the fleetvans on site & MUCh cheaper.
All i say is buy with full cenral heating & double glazing to extend the usability from march to november.