Several years ago, I consciously chose more freedom and started renting out my first vacation home. What started as a dream grew into a profitable, largely automated business. I’m Jennie, a specialist in vacation rentals in the Netherlands. I now run several vacation rentals together with my boyfriend. In this blog I share my experiences and tips on how you too can use vacation rentals as a flexible and location-independent source of income.
A flexible and location-independent source of income
A few years ago, I was in a life that seemed already mapped out for me. A standard work week, five weeks of vacation a year, and a retirement age that moved forward a little bit each year. The prospect of being stuck in the same pattern well past the age of 60 caused anxiety. I thought: this is not what I was born for.
I was looking for something that would make a relatively large amount of money with little effort
I wanted freedom. So, while I still had my reception job at the time, I looked for a side hustle. One that is fun to do, and that allows you to make a relatively large amount of money with little time investment. Then an old dream resurfaced: renting out a vacation home.
The math was quick
I had this dream for years, but always put away in the drawer “Someday, when I’m ready”. Until I started looking into it and saw what other landlords were asking: €1000 to €1200 per week, sometimes more. I didn’t need to run a complicated Excel on it to understand that there were opportunities here.
But what triggered me the most was this realization: I don’t have to be present at every stay. With a key box, guests can check in themselves. With pre-scheduled messages, you can automate almost all communication. And cleaning can be outsourced. That was the moment I decided: I’m just going to do it.
The purchase of my first vacation home
The search for the right home was both exciting and fun. I viewed homes not only through the eyes of a buyer, but especially through the eyes of a future guest. How does it feel here? What is the environment like? Is the value for money right? Does the location appeal to my target market?
It was an incredibly fun process: buying the vacation home, furnishing it, setting up the rental. Since the start, this vacation rental has been running incredibly well. The property now provides me with €25,000 net profit per year on. With average About one hour of work per week. And all costs are already subtracted from this, including cleaning and mortgage.
Thanks to automation and outsourcing, I only have to visit the house once a month or quarter. The system works. Even when we are on vacation, bookings are flowing nicely. During a week in Italy, for example, I saw this happen on the account of one of our vacation homes:
Renting out a vacation home provides freedom
What I quickly discovered is that you don’t need a large real estate portfolio to really notice a difference in your life. Just one vacation rental can give freedom. Not only because of rental income, but also because the vacation home itself is expected to increase in value. We see that vacation homes are rising nicely in value in recent years behind the regular housing market. Yes, even the chalets and wooden vacation homes. So there are still good opportunities here.
My original idea was to stick to one vacation home, but I met my friend who also had a vacation home and together we started to expand. One vacation home provides freedom, but we now have more. We now rent out several vacation homes in the Netherlands and we also have one in Spain. Fun fact: many people think that a vacation home in Spain is a better investment, but our vacation homes in the Netherlands yield the highest returns.
As our rental grew, the same questions from people around us became more frequent:
“How do you start?”
“What do you look for when buying?”
“How do you know if a property is going to be profitable?”
“How do you regulate taxation?”
“How do you automate your communications?”
“How do you get a full booking calendar?”
It became clear how much need there is for concrete explanations.
Set up the vacation rental even with little savings
The questions kept pouring in, but it’s hard to give short answers to questions like “How do you set this up?” and “How do you get a full booking calendar?” To achieve a successful vacation rental, everything has to be right from start to finish. So Loose shreds are of no use to you. That’s why I started The Vacation Rental Course. In it, you learn from me the big picture: how to buy a good vacation rental, set up the rental strong from the beginning and get as full a booking calendar as possible.
What I noticed is that many people thought vacation rentals were financially or practically out of their reach. But that doesn’t have to be the case at all. Course participant Irene, for example, bought her vacation home with only €15,000 in savings (a deposit on the purchase price) plus financing. And Marlou had been searching on her own for almost a yearbut got stuck because she simply didn’t know what to look for. With my help she found a suitable vacation home within two months.
The course I developed is everything I wish I had had at the beginning myself: step-by-step, with realistic numbers, helpful templates, practical videos and most of all: a solid foundation with which to achieve serious results.
It is a combination of:
- practical experience (what works, what doesn’t work, what can/can’t be automated)
- financial reality (how to calculate profits, how to forecast costs)
- automation (so you can run it semi-passively and not have to keep going to the house yourself)
- tax clarity (how do I handle vacation rentals tax-wise in the right and most advantageous way)
For the latter, I work with a tax professional so that students understand not only how to make your vacation rental a success, but also how to arrange everything neatly from a tax perspective. This piece is missing from almost all online information: much is outdated or lacks nuance. While it is hugely important to get this right.
A vacation home for rent and … for yourself!
A vacation home is of course ideal for renting out, but it is also a nice place for yourself. I have several students who live abroad and enjoy staying in their own vacation home in the Netherlands when they visit family or when they have to be in the Netherlands for work. An ideal combination! It is perfectly possible to run a vacation home from abroad. We run our vacation home in Spain completely from the Netherlands.
Ready to explore vacation rental opportunities?
If this story sparked something in you, I invite you to check out The Vacation Rental Course, Alieke from Working Remotely is also taking it. In it you will learn exactly how to properly handle vacation rentals in the Netherlands. The course is available to you online and you can take it at your own pace. You have lifetime access, so suppose you go on for a second vacation home you can take the course again. Furthermore, you don’t do it alone: if you have questions, I’m here to help you. There is also a community where you can connect with others and where I share great For Sale options with you.
Especially for readers of workingremotely.co.uk, you can use the code workingremotely use for €125 discount.
Your future is not always as fixed as it seems. Sometimes one choice is enough to throw the rest open.
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