Why Short-Term Letting Can Make Sense For Foreign Investors in London

Why Short-Term Letting Can Make Sense For Foreign Investors in London

If you’re a foreign investor, or if you live overseas and you’ve snapped up a property in London, you’re often faced with a quandary. You’ve made the decision to invest in the Capital’s property market and then support the considerable ongoing running costs of keeping your home – but how can you make it pay for itself – or contribute towards these expenses?

Your London pad can give you a problem or two

You may have made the decision not to rent out to local tenants on a long let. You plan on using your home in the capital at various times during the year, so a long let doesn’t make practical sense. Long term tenants will usually look for a 12 month month contract at the very least.

This won’t work if you need a base or a pied-a-terre to use if you work in London at various times during the year. You or your family may use it for shopping trips, cultural visits or spending time with family who are based in the city.

Using your London property like this, gives you two immediate problems:

Firstly, you potentially have the nightmare scenario of something untoward happening while you’re away. Imagine, you’ve jetted into the city, you unlock the front door and your heart sinks when you spot that burglars have broken in and stolen your valuables. Or, that a leaky pipe has gone unnoticed and your carpets are all ruined. This is the last thing you want to deal with if you’ve flown in for a business meeting or short break.

The second headache is how can you make your home rentable and revenue-generating in a safe and trusted manner? If it could be rented out in a flexible manner to allow you to continue to enjoy your London home, then even better!

The managed short-term letting solution

An ever-increasingly popular – not to mention smart – option for property owners in your situation is to consider short-term lets. This entails opening up your home to allow guests from around the world to have an authentic stay in the British capital.

Nearly everyone has heard of platforms like Airbnb, which allow you to advertise your home, take bookings and earn an income. All very well, if you’re living around the corner to take care of everything – not to mention the time and hassle involved in meeting and greeting guests, cleaning, changing the bed linen, towels and then checking for damage after each and every stay. It’s almost like a full time job!

If you’re living in a different time zone and a flight away from London, this is not going to work for you. It’ll be impossible. This is where UnderTheDoormat comes in to help. We are London’s preferred and trusted short-term letting specialist. We offer a complete managed service. A total peace of mind solution for our homeowners – many of whom live overseas like you.

How We Can Help

UnderTheDoormat provides a hassle-free service where we look after your bookings, we also look after the checkins and checkouts with one of the team being present to welcome your guests, who we carefully vet, to your home. They’re also there at every departure to check for any damage too – they’ll ensure your home is left in exactly the same immaculate condition in which it was found.

We provide your home with a full professional clean before and after each stay, we even bring in, and replace, our own fresh high quality bed-linen and towels and toiletries! You don’t need to lift a finger.

When the guests have a query or a problem, they contact us – our dedicated guest-services team – not you. So you’re not troubled at all – no matter where in the world you live.

Our guests stay for an average of 7 nights and during their stay, your London home is fully covered by our fully comprehensive insurance. One less thing for you to worry about. We even arrange for a professional photo-shoot of your home to make it stand-out.

By using UnderTheDoormat, you’ll be able to access your own online booking calendar to highlight when your home will be available to let out to guests. To make your life even easier, your rental income is calculated at a set nightly rate. It is net of all charges and costs, which makes your financial planning for the year simple and straightforward.

All of this means that UnderTheDoormat offers you a solution to your home-owning quandary. You’ll receive an income and you’ll also have a trusted partner to help keep your London home safe and secure while you’re away.