Читать книгу Renting Your Recreational Property for Profit - Heather Bayer - Страница 19

Let’s assume that you are planning to rent year-round. This will mean you’ll be heating the property right through the winter, albeit on a minimum setting when it is empty. Be realistic when forecasting electricity costs. Depending on your location, take into account the strain that running air conditioning can place on a budget.

When you are making any forecast, make sure you include all the expenses, as forgetting some could have quite an impact on your break-even calculation. If in doubt, it’s better to overestimate expenses now, rather than getting a nasty surprise later.

Don’t expect your guests to economize on fuel in the winter or air conditioning in summer, although you can do some things to encourage them to be more thrifty with your power supply. Fitting individual thermostats in each room may help, but you then have to hope they will turn them down when they go out. Saving electricity is often a hit-and-miss affair with guests. Unless you are charging them separately for the fuel they use, why should they bother? Some owners stick a small label onto each thermostat as a reminder; others have a notice on the outer door so that it will be seen as guests leave to go out for the day. This is fine, but from experience, it’s sensible to forecast for the worst case: high electricity bills while you have renters in the winter and/or air conditioning units in hot seasons.

“We live about half an hour from our property and drive by regularly. In winter, you can see the back of the place from the road, even more so when the Christmas lights are on. We’d rented it to a group for New Year’s, and my husband was incensed each time we went past in the daytime to see all the outside lights on. It was obvious the group hadn’t switched the lights off throughout their stay. We’ve now installed a timer that turns all but one of the exterior lights out at midnight. Not only does this lower the electricity costs, but it’s much nicer for our neighbors not to have their night sky polluted by several hundred watts of lighting.”

If you have a wood-burning stove or open fireplace, you may need to decide early on in the planning process whether you will provide unlimited wood for your guests to use in the winter, or if you plan to leave a reasonable amount free of charge and expect them to buy additional firewood as required. The first option is more likely to please your guests, and you can increase the winter rental costs accordingly. There’s more about adding value to your rental package in Chapter 12, Generating Return Visits.