Who can be a holiday home caretaker?

Anyone can be a holiday home or second home caretaker.  There is no training or qualifications in the discipline so the traits required to become a successful caretaker include reliability, attention to detail, responsibility and a friendly attitude.

Is there much demand for holiday home caretakers?

Yes, especially in holiday home hotspots such as most coastal areas around the UK, South West England, many areas of Wales, the Cotswolds, Yorkshire, Norfolk and the Lake District.  Other areas of demand include Scotland of course, the Peak District and some city centre locations which are ideal for short breaks such as Edinburgh, York, Manchester and London.

What does a caretaker do? The basics

Holding a key for the owner in the event of access for tradesmen and performing checks on the property.

Where a property is not holiday let, preparing the property for the owners arrival (making beds, putting welcome items into the fridge etc.)

Where a property is holiday let, carry out the changeover clean in between guest stays and arrange key collection for the next arrival.

What else does a caretaker do?

Being on call for guests.

Owners should make provision for emergencies during a paying guest stay.  This is typically an emergency contact, a guest can use in unforeseen events.  These might include being locked out of the property, a broken boiler or burglar alarm going off in the middle of the night.

Property maintenance services.

This covers quite a range of services for owners, such as:

• Decorating, both internally and externally.
• Gardening and cutting the grass.
• Shopping and providing welcome packs for the owner and their guests.
• Shopping for replacement items, such as kitchenware and electrical items.
• Sourcing and arranging tradesmen, such as electricians, plumbers, glaziers and roofers.

What do I need to consider?

Availability

One of the key requirements for a caretaker is the changeover cleans in the summer, which may impact on the caretaker’s own holiday plans, having to be available on a Saturday (typically) throughout the summer.

Secondly the caretaker may need to be available at other times throughout a guest stay to respond to emergencies.

Credibility

An owner is looking for someone who is reliable and responsible to look after their property.  Someone who can be trusted with the keys.  Prospective caretakers will need to consider references and how they can establish this.

Resources

If a caretaker manages a small portfolio of properties, they will need help in the form of cleaners on changeover days to clean all the properties before a new guest party arrive.

It is also a good idea to have a support network of tradesmen who can be called upon to resolve any problems that arise, such as a broken boiler or burst pipe.

Locality

Being a holiday home caretaker requires a degree of localisation; travelling a distance to clean a property, or to let a tradesman into a property can become unworkable.  So it is a useful exercise to define the areas you can sensibly cover.

How many holiday homes can I manage?

The resources required to manage a holiday home vary throughout the year and on the requirements of the owner.  Some require a simple key holding service with infrequent property checks and cleaning, while others may be successfully holiday let with 30-40 changeovers per year and access for repairs and maintenance.

The biggest likely resource will be changeover cleans in the summer where a number of properties all need cleaning in a short window of time.  This then involves employing some help to complete all the cleaning before the arrival of guests.