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I'm thinking of doing gites!


newbiee

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Though after reading the long thread full of reasons not to .....!     I have a property next to my home which I'm going to turn into a gite.

So, would any of you care to share your top tips?  Anything you wished you'd done differently when creating your gite?  Any tips, serious or funny, would be nice to read  [:)]

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Well, I'm also thinking of doing gites. 

Have just "prepared" the guest room this morning.  That included, besides the usual dusting, hoovering, making up the beds, also the removal of stored suitcases, old TV, laundry bags, etc.

Then there are the fresh flowers, the drinking water, the placing of suitable reading material, checking that there are enough clothes hangers, putting out clean towels, etc.

At the end of the morning, I looked at the room and thought if I went to stay in some lodging establishment, I'd be very happy to be allocated a room like this.

Best of all, I'll get paid for doing this work.

On the other hand, perhaps not......................![:D]  I don't think I can handle any complaints after going to so much trouble.

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Think long and hard about it before deciding. It was me who started the "other" thread. Its quite a light-hearted rant, but it clearly demonstrates some of the pitfalls. Also, do a lot of research into whether its going to be worth your while. My sister lives in France too, and when they were renovating their house, they wanted to divide it into two, making a seperate gite. Thing is....all the money it would have taken to do the work would have taken a very long time indeed to recuperate through the gite. They never bothered in the end. Realistically, how many weeks a year will you rent it for? what income will this generate? will that be taxable? at the end of the day, is it going to be a sensible investment of time and money? If it will take several years to recoup the investment for the work, then I would say its probably not worth it, as in several years time, you will be spending more money to refit and keep the deco up to scratch. you are quite likely to run at an overall loss, which is pointless. I dont know hw old you are just now, but if the gite only breaks even when you are in your 80`s...was that a good idea? Have a look at other gites nearby and see what they are like, what market they cater to, how busy they are etc etc. Have a look around your area and try to see what a tourist would think....why would they come here? how could you attract them?  Then think about this....you have your nice wee corner of France all to yourselves, do you really want to have a bunch of randoms living so closely? most people are perfectly pleasant, but you will get the odd one who you cant stand for whatever reasons. This is one of he biggest decisions, I would say. Its also one of the big things that put my sister off. she lives in a quite isolated location, and the thought of randoms being there all summer was bit off-putting.

If you are fitting the place out especialy as a gite - easy to clean, hard wearing surfaces everywhere. Tiled flooring cleans up easilly and wont stain like carpet or rugs. Make sure the walls are done in a paint or other finish that can be retouched easilly later, as there WILL be marks, scrapes etc to cover up over time. tiles around the cooker and sink etc to keep grease off the walls.

Try to have it on its own fuse board, seperate from your house, so that an electrical fault or circuit breaker opening in one wont knock out the other.

watch where you run your pipes for water and drainage. Nothing worse than listening to the contents of someone elses bowels gurgling its way along the waste pipes. flushing the toilet or having a shower shouldnt cause water-flow problems elsewhere. Plan what size of water heater would be ideal for the number of people in the gite (assuming you go for the cumulous tank type) then make it 50% bigger.

make the bedrooms flexible. consider a double bed than can split into 2 singles , use bunk beds etc to cover as many combinations of adults and kids as you can.

Provide a decent minimum level of consumables - bog roll, kitchen roll, bin liners, fairy liquid etc. If you have a fosse, provide a toilet cleaner thats compatible with it. Salt, pepper, oil, coffee machine filters etc tc are all nice touches to add and usually appreciated.

How will you work out costs for electricity, gas, fire-wood etc? have it included in the price? have it as an extra? if so you will need a seperate leccy counter for the gite so you can charge for units used. Are you going to provie badding? will the costs be included or will you charge extra? My gites cater to 99% french markets, somost people bring their own bedding, but if you are advertising to UK, people coming via ryanair wont want to waste their 35grams luggageallowance trying to fit a duvet into the case!

If there is a garden - is it fenced or unfenced? are you willing to fence it? if unfenced, is it safe for children to be in the garden? will you accept pets? if its fenced, what about access? gates? who will be responsible for opening and closing them? is there enough room for parking? what about shade to park cars in? do you have neighbours? how will they react to a bunch of randoms staying there over the summer? will the parking arrangements affect the neighbours?

Dont go over-board with "stuff" but dont have it like a monks cell. Decorations, books, telly, dvd player, this sort of thing would be a minimum level imo.If you want to go a little further, add stuff like internet access by wifi or provide a pc, games, cd`s, bikes etc, but be prepared for stuff to get damaged or half-inched. BBQ, and outside table/chairs/parasol/sun loungers etc etc are a must assuming you have the space.

kiss goodbye to doing anything on a saturday. you will have to spend all day working and waiting, unless you employ someone else to do changeovers and cleaning.

dont get too attatched to the place. There is a danger in doing it up TOO nicely that you will like it too much, so strangers staying there and possibly mistreating the place will anger you too much. Try to keep uninvolved emotionally - Its a business.

Get a decent contract made up. Make sure it coveres you from all angles. Sort out how to work a security deposit ( see a recent thread about this) sort out your banking and how to deal with foreign cheques, will you accept cheque vacances? do you want to join Gites De France or Cle Vacances? find out what they will specify, and what it may cost you in exta expenses and factor this into your "is it worth it" calculations. Same goes for advertising, website fees, flyers etc etc  its all more expense to figure.

 

Dont let this or the other thread put you off though. There are thousands of gites in France and we cant all be completely wrong!

Good luck either way!

 

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Thanks for taking the time to write such a long and useful reply [:D]  [:D]  Seriously useful stuff, and I'm happy to see that we have thought about most of the things you mentioned (though not all).  The bit about the waste pipes made me laff!

We are in a great location and setting for holiday makers, we're still young (ish) and we could prepare the gite for a very reasonable amount.  We don't expect to be full every week!  And we wouldn't be looking for a huge amount of cash from it ... our expectations are realistic.

Always good to ask the experts for their tips and advice though, keep then coming  [:D]

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Dont know what area you are in; we have the gite; thought we'd have an income to boost our pension; so far we've had one paying guest last year; who left us with an enormous electric bill; another couple who fortunately had paid in full; stayed one night then left with no explanation, This year we have two bookings; both friends;

We can't understand why we get no bookings; every one who sees it says how nice it is; The only thing we don't have a garden or a pool; but the price we charge reflects that;

Hope you have more luck than we have;

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  • 6 months later...
Interesting and comprehensive post but there's one thing missing for anyone taking a first look at the possibility of opening a gite business.

Many people talk about business being up or down, some seem to have 10 week businesses, others 30-40. Many complain about stressful Saturdays, but not much about what happens Sunday to Friday.

But the most important question, and clearly I'm not asking you to open up your books, but for say, a nice 2 gite business, modern and pretty, with a proper pool, after exes, somewhere where there's lots of both business and competition - say charente or dordogne, what's a reasonable expectation of income?

thanks in anticipation

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My advice would be to look at listing sites, google something along the lines of - gite rental in Charente/Dordogne then check what rates are being asked for properties similar to your own. Easy to work out income, exes depends on many variables.

Apologies to state the obvious, sometimes the obvious gets overlooked. Sunday-Fridays are days off unless......................guests have problems!

 

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We are in the Charente & are entering our 6th season - so far we have had approx 20-23 weeks/gite/year - GdF say a good year is 14wks/gite for this region, so I guess we are doing well.  We also do B&B & the combined incomes cover our costs......this is a big place which costs a lot to run & we intend to stay for at least another 6yrs when one of us reaches retirement age so quite content.  We make no profit as such as any extra after we have paid the bills & our living expenses goes on annual maintenance, decoration etc....so nothing saved, but so far apart from our 1st year when we were getting started have not had to dip into our savings...but this year could be different.  Do your homework, work out how much you need to 'top up' the pension, price accordingly & advertise wisely.  Also remember it will take a couple of years to get established & gain a core clientele of regular guests - the secret of success. Good Luck
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Im generally unwilling to discuss finance to strangers (no offence meant, its my tight-wad scottish nature!) but the income can vary massively depending on an almost infinite set of circumstances.

I have 2 gites - one sleeps up to 7, the other up to 4. No "proper" pool, just an inflatable thing. Im located in a little hamlet 2kms from a small village, which itself is rather isolated. Its rolling farm countryside here, not your typical south of france stuff like the Herault etc. Now, this village does have an attraction that pulls the French holidaymakers in when its open during the summer which boosts the local economy, but we dont rely on it as we rent out well all year round. 2008 saw the percentage for occupancy well over 50% for both gites - ie a fair bit more than 26 weeks per year, and that was the first year we did this properly. 2009 looks set to follow the same pattern and if the bookings so far are anything to go by, we will probably show an increase this year.  Probably 95% of rentals are to french people, with the rest being dutch and spanish. I dont advertise to the english market at all.

No point beating about the bush - we do well. Very well indeed. The lady in the tourist office is always asking me my secret, as we rent out much more than all other gites roundabout by a significant amount. I have been for a snoop, and online digging has revealed a lot, and from what I gather, my gites are better decorated, more spacious, better equipped and have better facilities provided than the others. We are also cheaper than all the others. Im trying not to blow my own trumpet too much (not working is it [;-)] ) but the lower level of apparent commitment from the other gite owners in the area seems to be holding them back. I regularly have to turn people away when we are booked up and I normally direct them to other local gites, but for whatever reason, they rarely seem to make bookings with them.

Luck, attitude, location, advertising methods, presentation and specification of your gites will determine your own income levels, its almost impossible to predict. That I have done so well has been a very large surprise to me, yet others, as someone posted above appear to have done the right things, yet struggle to fill more than a couple of weeks.

Good Luck.

 

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[quote user="pelly"]Dont know what area you are in; we have the gite; thought we'd have an income to boost our pension; so far we've had one paying guest last year; who left us with an enormous electric bill; another couple who fortunately had paid in full; stayed one night then left with no explanation, This year we have two bookings; both friends;
We can't understand why we get no bookings; every one who sees it says how nice it is; The only thing we don't have a garden or a pool; but the price we charge reflects that;
Hope you have more luck than we have;
[/quote]

 

Hi Pelly

 

I had a quick look at your web-site. You refer to the nearest village but don't say how far away it is. That would put me off.

Good luck

 

John

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Dave21478 wrote:

Im generally unwilling to discuss finance to strangers (no offence

meant, its my tight-wad scottish nature!) but the income can vary

massively depending on an almost infinite set of circumstances.

I have 2 gites - one sleeps up to 7, the other up to 4. No "proper"

pool, just an inflatable thing. Im located in a little hamlet 2kms from

a small village, which itself is rather isolated. Its rolling farm

countryside here, not your typical south of france stuff like the

Herault etc. Now, this village does have an attraction that pulls the

French holidaymakers in when its open during the summer which boosts

the local economy, but we dont rely on it as we rent out well all year

round. 2008 saw the percentage for occupancy well over 50% for both

gites - ie a fair bit more than 26 weeks per year, and that was the

first year we did this properly. 2009 looks set to follow the same

pattern and if the bookings so far are anything to go by, we will probably

show an increase this year.  Probably 95% of rentals are to french

people, with the rest being dutch and spanish. I dont advertise to the

english market at all.

No point beating about the bush - we do well. Very well indeed. The

lady in the tourist office is always asking me my secret, as we rent

out much more than all other gites roundabout by a significant amount.

I have been for a snoop, and online digging has revealed a lot, and

from what I gather, my gites are better decorated, more spacious,

better equipped and have better facilities provided than the others. We

are also cheaper than all the others. Im trying not to blow my own

trumpet too much (not working is it

) but the lower level of apparent commitment from the other gite owners

in the area seems to be holding them back. I regularly have to turn

people away when we are booked up and I normally direct them to other

local gites, but for whatever reason, they rarely seem to make bookings

with them.

Luck, attitude, location, advertising methods, presentation and

specification of your gites will determine your own income levels, its

almost impossible to predict. That I have done so well has been a very

large surprise to me, yet others, as someone posted above appear to

have done the right things, yet struggle to fill more than a couple of

weeks.

Steve's thoughts:

Each to their own. You are clearly brilliant at running Gites but then again, you don't need me to tell you this!!!!

Having read through your masterplan I would highlight two bits that, for others and perhaps you, might be worth pondering........

Quotes from your post:

"We are also cheaper than all the others."  & "I regularly have to turn people away".

It is likely that revenue could be lost and workloads increased with this type of  business approach.

For some people running Gites are a way of balancing a more relaxed lifestyle with a potential for some additional income. Selling volume of most things at cheap prices is not difficult, however the knack in  balancing  the price you charge versus the market that is available is a different skill but one that can deliver you far more avg revenue per week and with the added bonus of no more or even,slightly less work.

Trying to square these couple of quotes:

"No "proper" pool, just an inflatable thing"

"better equipped and have better facilities provided than the others"

Steve

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yes, I could charge more, but I am 100% certain that bookings would fall noticeably as a result. The price difference isnt enourmous and certainly not worth messing with something that works for the sake of a few hundred euros per season. Plus, I am giving up the gites at the end of 2009, so have no inclination to experiment.

 

As for the pool, we have an inflateable pool, nobody else has a pool of any kind, therefor we are better equipped as far as pools go. Besides, our guests have little interest in the pool really and its certainly not a deciding factor for anyone who has ever come here.

 

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[quote user="dave21478"]

As for the pool, we have an inflateable pool, nobody else has a pool of any kind, therefor we are better equipped as far as pools go. Besides, our guests have little interest in the pool really and its certainly not a deciding factor for anyone who has ever come here.

 

[/quote]

In fifteen years of holidaying in France prior to buying our place there, we only once stayed in a gite with a pool.  Although our children liked swimming, most gites with a pool, had several properties that were all rented out and so shared the pool and shared the available outdoor space.  Those gites where we had sole use of the pool were beyond our budget.  Use of a pool wasn't (in our view) worth the lack of privacy.  Travelling without the kids, a pool wouldn't be a priority at all.  On the one occassion where we did rent a gite with a private pool (we travelled with my brother and his family to share the cost) I, personally, didn't use the pool once.

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Interesting...we have a very large pool 17m x 10m & you would think that would be the main attraction as even with 2 gites & a 4 room B&B it is larger than most hotel pools & offers quite a lot of privacy, so we can offer ample space for an affordable budget, but the 3 main attractions that bring guests to us are the tennis court, the giant chess & table tennis.......always a surprise to us how few of our guests even go to look at the pool let alone sit by it &/swim.  The chateau hotel with 5 gites up the road has a 10m x 5m pool with up to 40 people around it...ours you can usually count the number of people as being less than 10 at any one time, & we are charging less than half their prices....
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Yup, the several thousand euros it would take to install a proper pool, get it up to spec and keep it maintained would be a poor investment for me. Going on current pool use, and talking to guests about whether they would use a big pool tells me that it wouldnt get a huge amount of use. The current inflateable is perfectly satisfactory to the few who want to get wet. However, the few hundred I spent on a table-tennis set-up, table football, badminton nets etc and a load of basic mountain bikes has proved to be a fantastic success.
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Dave21478:      

Yes clearly it would be a poor business investment bearing in mind I think you said that you were stopping your incredibly succesful Gite business at the end of this year. Seems a shame since you have been only doing it "properly" for last & this year.

I think guests who book a Gite without a  pool will normally, when asked, not be bothered about the use of a pool, hence them booking a Gite without a proper pool in the first place. I believe, as a general rule, if you look around the web and checkout Gites with proper pool facilities you will find them picking up bookings particularly across July & August, quickly in the early months of availability.

Having done our Gites without a pool over the first five years and now for 2 years with a pool it has been very well used by our guests. They booked their Gite summer holiday with a pool because thats what they wanted. They paid the very nice(Thank you very much) premium for the privelege. We do find that they don't hang  around all day using it apart from perhaps their first day when they are relaxing after their drive down to us. They use it for early morning dips and when they come back around early evening to chill out.

We do have mountain bikes but these are hardly used and no guests have ever asked for table tennis, or table football.

I can't believe any potential guests have been persuaded to book on the back of any or all of those "facilities".

Investing in a pool is expensive but our decision making was on the back of us wanting a pool for ourselves and then this was followed by the thought process of... How much extra per week can we charge the Gite guests for its use. One day we will sell this place and we believe we can recupe the pool cost as part of that. In the mean time we have the pool that WE wanted and the gites earn us a very nice increase in revenues.

As previously requested, it would be nice to see your website along with the availability position ?

Steve

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Steve

You seem to have a problem with Dave's success, why is that?  Dave has said on prevous occasions he manages the gites he runs, he does not own them so deciding to give up as he's fed up with it is quite understandable, it's not his life it's his job!

His success in my opinion is down to his target market being almost entirely non Brits, thats where so many Brit gite owners go wrong, they advertise just in the UK and so this year they are going to feel the pinch. Living in a holiday area myself I can tell you that there has been a huge decline in Brit visitors to France already this year (down 25% in some resorts) and that every Brit I see is feeling the exchange rate and will likely see a trip to France as very expensive in comparison to previous years.  Dave won't have that issue as his target market earns in euros, this week for example in resort we have an abundance of Parisians and Belgians all with money to burn it would seem and not a word from them on the price of things, last week during Brit half term no one talked about anything else.

As has been said the gite business is fine as pocket money but not as main income, those days are long gone, look at how many complexies are up for sale....(I sold mine 2 years ago and very glad I am to)

Panda

 

 

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Investing in a pool in this location for financial gain simply wont work, I can guarantee you that. Pools dont work here, full stop. Infact, from memory I cant think of a single house, gites or otherwise, that has a pool within a 20km radius of here, apart from the odd inflatable job like mine, but even they are much rarer than in areas further afield.

And no, I wont be posting my website. It is a long-standing policy of mine to keep my personal details away from internet forums as much as possible.

 

No, I dont own these gites. I am given carte-blanche to run them as I see fit by their owner, who lives at the other end of the country. In my time here, I have turned it from a "hobby" with 4 - 5 bookings per year into a successfull, profitable business which I am still expanding. I plan to leave at the end of the 2009 summer season, but will continue to work hard till then, and plan on having the third and possibly fourth gite finished by August. I have a very low boredom threshold, and the time I have spent here has been profitable and good experience, but its time for me to move elsewhere.

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[quote user="Steve"]Dave21478:      


I can't believe any potential guests have been persuaded to book on the back of any or all of those "facilities".

Investing in a pool is expensive but our decision making was on the back of us wanting a pool for ourselves and then this was followed by the thought process of... How much extra per week can we charge the Gite guests for its use. One day we will sell this place and we believe we can recupe the pool cost as part of that. In the mean time we have the pool that WE wanted and the gites earn us a very nice increase in revenues.


Steve


[/quote]

Further to my previous posting on this subject we have more enquiries as we offer a tennis court & surprisingly the giant chess than we do for the pool......2 of our regular families spend upwards of 4 hrs/day playing tennis & maybe a couple of hours a week at the pool...... we have a family come over from Ireland every year purely to play chess - they will continue a game even when it is throwing it down with rain & are not in the least bit interested in the huge pool next door, so maybe it depends what the other facilities are.  Since introducing the table tennis as well last year (worth the expense 3 times over) again we have repeat guests coming this year for that reason alone.....

As to having the pool for your own use, we had complaints our first year from returning guests about the previous owners using the pool while guests were staying, so beware....many guests we find prefer us to be around but unseen & some would definitely not welcome our presence at the pool.....as stated in an early posting many guests don't like to share with other paying guests so you may find that your only chance to be by your own pool is in a snatched hour on changeover day.   The extra you can charge can come at a premium....

 

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Betoulle:

I certainly don't doubt you when you say that a family come over from Ireland  purely to play giant chess but you have to wander why they don't just buy there own giant chess set back in Ireland and save themselves the cost of the holiday, after all they certainly would get the rain. I think with two Gites, as we have, the sound of a table tennis ball being pinged from bat to bat would potentially drive the other guests barmy. We have a Tennis court 1.5kms away in the village but I don't believe any guests have used it since 2002, when we first started with Gites, although it is part of the nearby facilties that are on both Gites advertising blurb.. I guess with your court being on site it makes things easier.

We only use the pool when Gite guests are not onsite and they are aware of this before they book.Even with two gites we could go in the pool most days if we wanted and with our guests knowing when they book that the pool is shared with one other Gite then the privacy thing does not really exist. Kids from both Gites very quickly make friends and the pool is the ideal play area. We have beaches close by so the guests do go off for the day.

I think running Gites can come at a premium especially when you are on site but it beats working.

Steve

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Panda

I don't have a problem with Dave's "success" I don't believe I have said that.I queried advice that Dave had given suggesting that being the cheapest in the area was some how a good strategy. This might be the case for Dave but the thread was started by a "Newbiee" to the Gite world and so cheap might not be the only or best approach.

So....I don't have a problem with your exchange rate views but.......with the credit crunch being felt across the world, including Europe then I suspect that an effect will be felt whether advertising in French, Spanish or English. There is a tighter marketplace, whether you are selling to the Brits or/and the European mainland. As we know job losses are being felt right across France, Spain etc

 Also not sure where you think those Brits who would normally go to France on holiday and who are still looking to go on holiday are going to go. The pound is poor at present against most currencies. The difference against the average Euro rate of last years summer period  is around 11%, enough, but not perhaps as much as is being hyped. Job security may be a bigger factor than exchange rate in the decision making of families and although it will be a tough year I still think there may be a late booking "surge" whether they be Brits,French or Spanish.

I do agree with your last paragraph and in fact I thought that's what I said in my original post in reply to Dave's views & thoughts and remembering the first post that started this thread.

I quote myself from my original post below:

"For some people running Gites are a way of balancing a more relaxed

lifestyle with a potential for some additional income. Selling volume

of most things at cheap prices is not difficult, however the knack in 

balancing  the price you charge versus the market that is available is

a different skill but one that can deliver you far more avg revenue per

week and with the added bonus of no more or even,slightly less work."

There is more than one way to skin a cat (Where did that saying come from!!)

Steve

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It is possible to run gites as a main income, if you offer what people want. I disagree totally with what has been said about pools - probably the main reason my gites have such a good booking rate is because of the pool. I don't think I'd ever get rich just having French customers and if you are in a good location and offer quality accommodation, with all the extras, wifi, UK TV etc. it is possible to have a good income by attracting a range of nationalities all year round. I really think that most UK clients with families want a (heated) pool and will pay accordingly.

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Dave

Let's have a look at the website..............or is it all a figment of your imagination ??

Posting a site address is a really easy thing to do compared with running a gites operation. So give us a look at that cool pool, chess board  and all those other "facilities "

Have a great season

Wilko

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