INDEX - CLICK TO FIND ARTICLE
1 HOLIDAY PROPERTY PROFIT
2 BUYING WELSH HOLIDAY COTTAGES
3 WELSH HOLIDAY COTTAGE INVESTMENT
4 QUALITY TIME FOR OVER FIFTIES
5 BUYING FOR INCOME AND EVENTUAL RETIREMENT
6 PETS & PUFFS
7 SOME PEMBROKESHIRE PROMISES AND PLACES
8 A FEW PEMBROKESHIRE CHARMS – A BRIEF TRAVELOGUE
9 WELSH HOLIDAY HOTSPOTS
10 TAXATION AND THE LETTING BUSINESS - A Brief Guide

Article 1 - HOLIDAY PROPERTY PROFIT
It’s all about location, location, location. However, to maximise the PROFIT there is a less heralded, but crucial element. Quality. Quality in selection, Quality in standards of comfort, quality attention to the smallest detail for a holiday which begs for a return visit.

For a property to give pleasure, to return a fair profit, needs expertise. Property buying is hassle enough. To get a holiday property up and running is an equally challenging project needing time and expertise.

Marketing holiday properties is a sophisticated, fiercely competitive industry, of which Wales is a tiny section. So investors are advised to find a Holiday Cottage Agency which has a proven track record in giving holiday property owners’ advice and a continuing service to maximise the property’s profitable return.

Quality Cottages have evolved this service over the last 44 years of effort as owners and letting agents at the sharp end of the Tourist Industry. Our sole purpose is the pursuit of excellence to give property owners a fair profit and most importantly locations that maximise capital gains potential.

Our holiday property owners don’t work FOR us. We work for THEM. Equally important in a triple partnership are the vital holiday makers. We have over many years helped hundreds of holiday property owners to achieve significant capital appreciation, income and pleasure from their properties.

For effective advice in buying your Welsh holiday cottage contact us at Quality Cottages.

For further information:
Telelephone - Leonard Rees or Christine Barker - FREEPHONE 0800 007 5299
or
Email - leonardrees@qualitycottages.co.uk

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Article 2 - BUYING WELSH HOLIDAY COTTAGES

Quality Cottages has nearly 44 years experience in all aspects of this market. Our expertise is available free for any potential buyers. Contact us on our freephone number 0800 007 5299 for personal service from a highly motivated team. We exist to help you avoid pitfalls in what is now a sophisticated, competitive investment market.

There are three categories of buyers for Welsh holiday cottages.

• Investor purchase for income and capital appreciation.

• Buying for eventual retirement with some income in the interim.

• All three - capital appreciation, income and ultimate retirement.

Time spent locally on market research and making valuable local contacts should be factored into your budget. Having decided upon an area, you should then contact all the local estate agents.

Regarding potential Welsh holiday cottage buying, here are some Golden rules for you.

• The nearer the coast the better. For the best return in income and especially capital appreciation we suggest you buy within five miles of the sea and beaches.

• Property in a National Park; in or near National Trust areas or on the coast generate most guest income and invariably have highest capital growth.

• The property ideally should be detached. Privacy for Welsh holiday cottages cannot be stressed enough. Diluted privacy - from whatever source dilutes demand as well as income and capital appreciation.

• You should consider other profitable locations such as villages and small market towns near coastline, harbours or lakes. They attract the more gregarious holiday makers who may wish to walk to the beach, pub or restaurant. Semi-detached property in these village locations do not suffer from diluted privacy to the same extent.

• Property near to essential services, garage, village shops, doctor’s and dentist’s surgery etc are currently appreciating faster in capital value, almost as fast as property with fine coastal viewsprobably because the retiree market favours such environs.

• At the last analysis be guided by your own instinct. If you fall in love with a property, others will too. We suggest you will be most likely to make that prudent decision when you have devoted time to research. You can then return home in the comfortable knowledge that Quality Cottages expertise will be working for your benefit, year in year out.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON BUYING WELSH HOLIDAY COTTAGES

You may well be asking “OK Quality Cottages you have been marketing holidays for nearly half a century, what can you offer that other letting agencies do not”?

Well, Quality Cottages do NOT place any restrictions whatsoever on when, or how many weeks our owners take for themselves. We do not, and never have cherry picked all the best high season weeks for ourselves.

The current house buying frenzy applies to Welsh holiday cottages as much as it does for, e.g. the West Country or Lake District or Cotswolds. Current estimate of second UK home owners is 800,000. Hen’s teeth are plentiful in comparison to finding a derelict barn at a knock down price. Gazumping is the same word in Welsh as it is in English. Buyers who spend time in the area have a huge advantage. In depth research and the resulting local knowledge and contacts cannot be beaten.

N.B. Buying for Capital appreciation with the added value of having your own Welsh holiday cottage sounds easy. It is not. An overview of projected income from Quality Cottages ready reckoner income tables can help you decide.

All advise, the marketing, brochure design and production, web site, copy writing, photography, booking and collecting of holiday rental income will be handled professionally, and the owner paid monthly for their Welsh holiday cottage or ultimate home to retire to.

It has become an exceptionally competitive market requiring very considerable skills especially in search engine usability and optimisation on the web. As ever there is strength in marketing unity as a glance at Quality Cottages’ brochures and web site will amply demonstrate.

For effective advice in buying your Welsh holiday cottage please contact us at Quality Cottages.

For further information:
Telelephone - Leonard Rees or Christine Barker - FREEPHONE 0800 007 5299
or
Email - leonardrees@qualitycottages.co.uk

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After nearly half a century in the Welsh tourist industry we are often the first to know of good holiday Welsh cottage investments.

After deciding to sell, cottage owners (many of whom have been with us for years) alert us. Though these are rare events nevertheless retirement, death, divorce or changing financial circumstances do occasionally result in Welsh Holiday properties in our portfolio coming on the market. These will be properties up to our stringent standards and will have proven track records of income. So we can give you an accurate forecast of rental return. We suggest it would be well worth your checking whether any in our portfolio are on the market.

We give our free advisory service on ANY property in the Welsh holiday cottage scene anywhere in Wales. We have very experienced staff who cover all Wales including the Borders.

From the moment you consider a property, we can advise you and most importantly, spot those often unseen or unmentioned pitfalls.

For effective advice in buying your Welsh holiday cottage please contact us at Quality Cottages.

For further information:
Telelephone - Leonard Rees or Christine Barker - FREEPHONE 0800 007 5299
or
Email - leonardrees@qualitycottages.co.uk

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Quality Time for over fifties – the time of your Life.

At all ages we hanker for those easeful time capsules called holidays. For those of us of “a certain age” our first priority is a predictable quality holiday.

Since 1962 we at Quality Cottages have been constantly researching the market, studying, analysing, computing and researching to create the conditions that make for your ideal holiday. Like bespoke tailors we look for quality, not quantity, in both location and property.

As decades come and go our selection standards rise with societies expectations for quality vacations. Every holiday cottage in our brochure has been subjected to a thorough inspection by several of our team. So our holiday properties cater for the comforts and needs of all generations.

We have expanded modestly in cottage numbers to retain quality.

So you are now at that stage of life when you can afford to choose and have the time to indulge yourselves. So what can your expect from Quality Cottages?

* Privacy. All our cottages are in a quality location, with a long track record of well satisfied visitors.

* Top rate furnishings and every modern convenience are standard.

* The morning bird chorus and farm animals may be the only outside noise you will hear.

* 85% of our cottages welcome pets free of charge.

* Your pet will have space to play or doze in the sun.

* You can be as active or as lazy and relaxed as you wish.

* You will normally be near superb walking routes “far from the Madding Crowd”

* You will perhaps be near secret coves, and larger clean beaches. Mountain streams, rivers and even remote lakes.

* There will be charming villages with a choice of shopping of a variety that will surprise you within easy reach.

* Essential services won’t be far away – doctors’ surgeries, dentists, chemists, garages, post offices etc., will be free of city tension and long waits for service.

* There is every likelihood that you will return for another holiday. Our statistics show this year upon year.

* You will discover charming character pubs, inns and restaurants off the beaten track.

* You will be able to adjust your activities to your capabilities.

For those who have luckily mellowed like fine wine, ponder the fact that most of Quality Cottages in west and north Wales are near the seas where the returning dolphins now play. The ancient Greeks believed that dolphins brought happiness to humans. We hope this to be true in our Quality Cottages too.

For effective advice in buying your Welsh holiday cottage please contact us at Quality Cottages.

For further information:
Telelephone - Leonard Rees or Christine Barker - FREEPHONE 0800 007 5299
or
Email - leonardrees@qualitycottages.co.uk

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Buying for income and eventual retirement

We all work for Quality of life. At no stage is it more important than at retirement. Buying the right home to retire to is probably as crucial a decision as any you will make in your life. Over the last 44 years Quality Cottages have seen many hundreds of couples, who have stayed regularly with Quality Cottages, decide to retire to Wales. The fruit of years of hard work to make a dream come true.

So our observations are directed to help those planning this decisive step. The first essential is a reality check. People usually choose an area which they know from happy family holidays usually in good weather. It will not be the same when you spend 365 days a year there. For a start the weather will be different on the Welsh coast because of the warmth of the Gulf Stream. Milder winters and early springs will be a welcome surprise. This is balanced by sea winds and some gales and higher rainfall especially the further inland you go. But a small price to pay in comparison with the bitter cold of say, East Anglia or the frozen north. Frosts on the Welsh coast are rare even before the implications of global warming.

As retirement beckons and city life becomes beset with overcrowding, traffic pressures, rising crime and stealth taxes “getting away from it all” becomes urgent for many. No longer a pipe dream, it becomes a retirement priority.

We have found the most successful retirement often started with buying a quality holiday home. Using it for the owner's holidays, but also getting an income which virtually gives free holidays as well as possibly paying the mortgage where necessary. Then comes the BIG decision, transforming the holiday cottage into the retirement home. Decision made, the permanent home is sold. Usually enough to pay off any holiday cottage mortgage and leaving a substantial (tax free) nest egg capital sum giving virtually another pension.

• Resentment against incomers has long gone. In fact local communities now welcome fresh faces and the income they bring.

• Though life’s pace is slower you will be surprised by the wealth of social and sporting life. Clubs and societies are legion from bridge parties, golf clubs, and yachting clubs. Churches are well attended, local history clubs abound and there are plenty of music concerts and festivals to enjoy. You have the choice to be as social as suits you.

To be certain of making the right choice we suggest,

• Spend as much time in your holiday/retirement cottages as you can out of season.

• Check out shopping facilities. Though you won’t find Harrods or Waitrose, you will be surprised at what you will find in Wales small market towns.

• We advise you contact people who have already retired, for they will have had time to settle in, and will talk from experience.

• You will discover old friends and family will visit you in the summer. The winter months will throw a retired couple back on their hobbies and intellectual interests unless they involve group activities in the many local societies. But you will have to make the effort to go out to find them

We at Quality Cottages hope these hints will be useful in your deliberations on retiring to a Welsh Holiday cottage. We are only a phone call away for any queries you may have. We exist not only to let top quality Welsh cottage holidays. But also to give Quality advice on that crucial step of selecting an ideal property for both holiday rental as well as retirement. Our office is always open for a personal face to face meeting to discuss one of life’s most important decisions.

For effective advice in buying your Welsh holiday cottage please contact us at Quality Cottages.

For further information:
Telelephone - Leonard Rees or Christine Barker - FREEPHONE 0800 007 5299
or
Email - leonardrees@qualitycottages.co.uk

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PETS AND PUFFS

FACT. 72% of holiday cottage visitors bring pets. Quite obviously they can only choose holiday cottages which accept them - 85% of them do. The British are a nation of animal lovers. For many the devotion to their animals is as strong as the importance of a holiday. Boarding kennels for dogs are expensive and the quality of care is unpredictable. When flicking through a holiday cottage brochure many dog owners seeing a property where it says “No pets” will instantly turn the page.

Over the years we have a higher occupancy rate by catering for pet owners. What is more we achieve a higher tariff, longer season, more repeat business and effectively higher gross income. The dogs, coming from mainly suburban areas are usually well trained and being used to a fairly restricted discipline. We warn the guests about keeping their dogs away from sheep and cattle, and to keep them under control whilst on the coastal path, or beaches where children play. (See our Booking Conditions re Pets)

Another source of additional revenue are smokers. On this subject human nature has to be taken into account. Smoking is addictive and many indulge in it now, and will do in the future. Nothing will change this fact of life so it is normal and acceptable now merely to request guests not to smoke indoors. Trying to change human habits is counter productive for holiday cottage income.

Over the years I found that by not discouraging holiday makers’ life style our holiday cottages have more repeat business, and estimate at least 15% to 30% more income than restricted properties. Those are the facts gained from experience. As always though, with Quality Cottages our owners always make the final decision.

For effective advice in buying your Welsh holiday cottage please contact us at Quality Cottages.

For further information:
Telelephone - Leonard Rees or Christine Barker - FREEPHONE 0800 007 5299
or
Email - leonardrees@qualitycottages.co.uk

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The peninsula is the only Coastal National Park in the UK and is girdled by 186 miles of a coastal path. No other county has more E.C. Beach Awards, 11 Blue Flags, 32 Seaside Awards and 14 Green Coast Awards. You are never more than 9 miles away from the sea here, so no wonder visitors are attracted to the huge choice of beaches. Some are expanses long enough to have had horse racing in the past, there are countless small coves, secluded haunts where smugglers have landed ever since excise taxes were levied and even German submarines during World War II

Out in the great ocean, islands and rocky outcrops stand like lonely sentinels – the 8 Bishops and Clerks known to the Romans simply as ‘the perils’ off St. Davids near where countless ship wrecks lie in the deep, further out are Skomer, Skokholm, Caldey, Ramsey and Grassholm. Most can be visited by boat each being an adventure in its own right.

Many of Quality Cottages visitors are attracted not only to the sea, the islands, the dolphins, seals and the occasional basking shark but also to the inland waterways. The estuary at Milford Haven meanders up the tidal river to Haverfordwest, a county town and port.

The inland reservoirs at Llys y Fran and Rosebush are havens of tranquillity and beauty. Pembrokeshire hills are interlaced with countless tiny streams, brooks, tumbling and trickling towards the sea. Languid rivers, the Daugleddau and Gwaun and Nyfer join the watery procession to the sea.

Pembrokeshire is divided by the Landsker Line, a natural division but formalized by the Normans with a line of forbidding castles. The south is now known as “Little England beyond Wales”. In proportion to its land mass, Pembrokeshire is sparsely populated with the majority being in the south. To explore the county or just laze the days away the first priority is a firm base, the more comfortable and private the better, which is what Quality Cottages is about.

The founding of Quality Cottages was a significant moment in the county’s history of tourism. Prior to the founding of the company in 1962, Pembrokeshire had long been a veiled secret in the back of beyond. A few cognoscenti found their way there in Georgian and Victorian times and built holiday homes on the coast at harbour towns such as Tenby and Newport. In the 1800’s, tours of Wales became popular with famous artists whose paintings encouraged visitors who appreciated the unspoilt pastoral settings. Then the 20’s and 30’s brought more adventurous spirits who sought farmhouse accommodation. The area exerted a strong pull on families for holidays and this has passed down the generations.

Leonard Rees is from a local farming family who had farmed in Pembrokeshire for hundreds of years. He saw that the holiday cottage industry had potential but needed a professional structured organisation to nurture it. As a pioneer of self catering in the tourist industry, he embarked on a one-man, methodical meticulous market research on his own in the late 1950’s and 60’s. He started his holiday cottage enterprise in 1962 - seven years before even the Wales Tourist Board came into being – eventually becoming a letting agent.

Leonard Rees then proceeded to put his money where his researches led him, converting his family farm barns and stables into holiday cottages. His was probably the first ALL Wales holiday cottage agency. Since that time in 1962, he has constantly, industriously, followed the marketing trend, updating and catering to new demands as they emerge. Nearly 50 years later he is still relishing the business, his enthusiasm as undiminished as it was when he started the company. No longer working alone but with a skilled team of around 26 and every up-to-date tool of marketing on a scale unimaginable when he followed his instincts to take a great gamble back in the early 1960’s. He has never wavered from his insistence on accepting only the very best holiday properties available.

The company is entirely Welsh based, poised to take advantage of every nuance of visitors’ needs which change as each season passes. The relativly small size of the company is such that there is always ‘close on the ground contact’ with holiday-makers and owners. It’s not the size that matters to the Agency, its the Quality. Consistent heavy bookings are the end result, quite impossible without contented, oft returning visitors. Impressively the firm won the first Gold Tourist Award for services to the self catering industry.
For effective advice in buying your Welsh holiday cottage please contact us at Quality Cottages.

For further information:
Telelephone - Leonard Rees or Christine Barker - FREEPHONE 0800 007 5299
or
Email - leonardrees@qualitycottages.co.uk

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Here are some of the gems where a visit will leave you with some golden holiday memories from the north of the county. All are near or on the Coastal path.

As good a start as any is to slip through St.Davids, the fabled Cathedral being well worth visiting en route, to St. Justinian’s Life Boat Station where you can look over the rippling tidal currents of Jack Sound to Ramsey Island. The sunsets there will flame into an unforgettable memory. A short drive will take you for a stroll on the vast golden-sanded Whitesands Bay. As you proceed north along the coastal lanes and little roads bear in mind there are bay after bay of tiny coves where, if you walk, you can look down from the cliffs and see seals. Further out you may be lucky enough to spot a pod of dolphins as well.

You will be enticed along the coast to little villages and ports. Abereiddy with its wonderful Blue Lagoon. Porthgain as tiny and picturesque a port as you can imagine has the Sloop Pub and restaurant, one of West Wales’s most atmospheric eating places. Abercastle some 3 miles on is another ‘must visit’, a tiny port since Roman times with its little island at the entrance. On then to Abermawr near the woollen mill, when winter gales pound its beaches huge boulders are rolled in the bay. Here the winter gales washed the coast road away a century ago never to be replaced and where even Brunel's plans were defeated by the Irish Potato Famine. On this coast where the cliff paths are alive with a huge variety of wild flowers, you will always be overlooked by some stone-age cromlech, burial site or fort.

The coast will unfold not only its majestic natural beauty but modern amenities, country pubs, the odd café and little villages all will be within easy reach.

You will also walk some of Pembrokeshire’s highest cliffs where bird life thrives, choughs, puffins and magnificent birds of prey. You can see the stately ferrys from Ireland heading to Fishguard harbour. It’s well worth going to Strumble Head where the lighthouse watches the stretching sea to Ireland. Actually, on a clear day you can see the Wicklow Hills in Ireland, purple outlines against the sky to remind us all of the Celtic connection.

This is the briefest of travelogues, it only takes in some 12 miles of Pembrokeshire’s coastline. There is still another 170 miles of drama, tranquillity and beauty to discover.
Of course Quality Cottages will be delighted to advise first time visitors of the many hundreds of places to visit in the county, which we all love so much. Our offices are open seven days a week. Nothing is too much trouble for our dedicated team, to help our visitors and cottage owners get the best out of our wonderful county.

For further information:
Telelephone - Leonard Rees or Christine Barker - FREEPHONE 0800 007 5299
or
Email - leonardrees@qualitycottages.co.uk

‘Quality’ Indefinable but instantly recognisable.

Our most treasured asset is not the properties we manage. It is our reputation. It has taken nearly half a century to build up; we do not intend to lose it. We take a lasting pride, and endless pains to make the Quality Cottage liaison between ourselves, our owners and our holiday makers a lasting mutual benefit. Our client service is instant, personal and reliable.

There are prime areas in Wales where we have an enviable track record of holiday property lettings.

If you have a holiday property or area contemplating purchasing - please contact us, we will visit you, (without obligation), and advise you on a mutually beneficial way forward.

Check-list to identify best Quality Cottage locations

N.B. Other profitable locations are in National Trust areas, property near harbours, on riverbanks or lakesides and of course within our three Welsh National Parks.

You will find a friendly welcome if you call at our office, from a small, but utterly dedicated team, keen to give you “Quality Cottage” advice, or we will gladly meet you, at your property, entirely without obligation.

For further information:
Telelephone - Leonard Rees or Christine Barker - FREEPHONE 0800 007 5299
or
Email - leonardrees@qualitycottages.co.uk

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This guide has kindly been prepared by Ashmole & Co -
our accountants for some 40 years.

This guidance is based on current legislation and does not take account of the proposals outlined in the Pre-budget report of 9th October 2007

Properties that meet the qualifying tests for Furnished Holiday lettings offer owners substantial tax advantages for Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax and Inheritance Tax. These tax advantages may not be available for other residential lettings. Both current owners and prospective owners should consider the taxation aspects of their investment very carefully.

The Taxes Act 1988 define the qualifying conditions for a property to be treated as a furnished holiday letting. Basically, the property must be situated in the United Kingdom and be :

INCOME TAX CONSIDERATIONS
Furnished holiday lettings have some income tax advantages over other residential lettings as under :

CAPITAL GAINS TAX CONSIDERATIONS
As far as capital gains tax is concerned, the commercial letting of holiday accommodation confers the availability of certain reliefs. The main reliefs are shown below :
Roll over Relief - Subject to the level of re-investment, any capital gain made on the disposal of a furnished holiday letting may be rolled over against the purchase of any other furnished holiday letting or any other qualifying business asset. In addition, if you already have a capital gain on a qualifying business asset, it may be possible to roll over that gain into the purchase of a furnished holiday letting.
Reliefs for gifts of business assets. It may be possible to gift a property that qualifies as a furnished holiday letting to, say, your children and claim for any capital gain to be held over. This relief is not available in respect of residential property that do not qualify as furnished holiday lettings
Business Asset Taper Relief This is a particularly valuable relief that is available for properties that qualify as furnished holiday lettings. This relief gives a deduction of up to 75% on any capital gain that arises. The maximum deduction that is available for properties that do not qualify as furnished holiday lettings is 40%.