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Hi Calum. Number of holiday lets in Uist has increased at least 5-fold over past 5 years, possibly 10-fold in last 10 years. Now there's a serious over-supply: many holiday lets are now far from fully booked even May-Sep (which you need to make it pay - the real profit is from winter lets). You say you would build if it was 'right for the community', but to be quite frank how can it be good for the local community - for rely on their lettings to survive - to have an outsider come in and take business away from them, and take profits out of the local economy? From my own experience, the profits from self-catering lets are either sufficient to give a return on investment, or to pay for labour in managing (which is more work than most realize), but very rarely both, unless you have an exceptional house and exceptional luck (eg Blue Reef Cottages in Harris - but you'll need exceptional site, £0.5m and will spend all your time on marketing). Hope this helps. |
