Lifestyle or investment?
Work out your priorities
So why do you want to buy a holiday home abroad? This might sound like a silly question, but is it? Question your true objective. Are you looking to buy a second home for your own enjoyment or for financial gain? Or is it a mixture of the two? If so which is more important?
If you are primarily looking at making a lifestyle purchase, either for immediate use or planning for later life, don’t be tempted to compromise your own requirements for what you’ve been told would be a wiser investment buy. Far too many tales are told of couples that have spent twenty years happily holidaying in one country, only to then buy a holiday home in which to spend their retirement in another completely different country because of investment advice. Do you care what happens to the value of the property in the next ten or twenty years if you are primarily looking for a home to enjoy in your retirement? If so, don’t be swayed by talk of new emerging markets – go with your heart on where you want to spend your retirement.
If your priority is to make a return on your investment or to have the property effectively pay for itself, focus on making the best investment you can even if you have to put your own feelings and tastes to one side. When you’re buying for profit, prioritise property price rises and currency fluctuation over the rental yield, as these factors will be much more significant in your overall return than the income earned from rentals. Renting your property out should cover your mortgage and make you a profit, but it will not be an important financial factor when you come to sell.
There is usually some middle ground in all of this and that is often the most common situation. A holiday home abroad can both mean having somewhere to enjoy for yourself and your family, either now or in the future, as well as providing rental return and capital appreciation prospects over the long term. Just be sure that you are striking the right balance between these two influences when choosing the right property for you.
Our main advice to people looking to achieve both personal enjoyment of their property and rental return is to not compromise on the location in which they wish to spend their leisure time, but be aware of factors such as length of season and access from the UK that will affect the rental return. It is often better to concentrate your effort on what type of property you buy, how you furnish it for holidaymakers and the methods of marketing used, rather than compromising on where you spend your retirement.
