Buying a holiday home to rent out: a checklist
Adriaan de Jager3 min readBuying a holiday home to rent out is exciting, and there's a lot to get right. Use this checklist before you make an offer, and before your first guest arrives.
Decide first: for you, for guests, or both
What you'll use the home for decides almost everything else. A home you mostly use yourself can be anywhere you love. A home that has to pay for itself needs to be where guests want to go, at the times they want to go. Most owners do both: decide now which weeks are yours, because those are weeks you can't rent out.
Location: demand, season and local rules
Location decides how often you can rent and what you can charge.
Demand. Is the area popular with the guests you have in mind? Look at how many similar homes are listed nearby, and how booked up they are in high and low season.
Season length. A beach house with a short summer earns its money in a few months. A city or mountain location may have demand all year.
What guests look for. Near the beach or deep in the forest, close to restaurants or far from everything: make a list of what makes the location appealing, and to whom.
Local rules. Check them before you check the view. See below.
Check the rules before you buy
Many towns limit short-term rentals. Depending on where you buy, you may need:
A permit or a registration number
To stay under a maximum number of rented nights a year
To collect and pay tourist tax
To register your guests with the authorities
Some areas ban new short-term rentals entirely. Since 20 May 2026, an EU regulation also requires that, where a country or region runs a registration scheme, the registration number appears on every listing. Ask the municipality what applies to the exact address before you make an offer. Our overview of vacation rental regulations lists what to ask.
Run the numbers
A holiday home pays for itself when what you earn covers what it costs, including the weeks it stands empty.
Costs: the purchase, financing, insurance, taxes, maintenance, utilities, cleaning, furnishing and replacing things, and the fees or commission for each booking channel.
Income: a realistic nightly rate times a realistic number of booked nights. Compare similar homes nearby, for the same dates.
The gap: what's left after costs, in a good year and a bad one.
Our revenue calculator shows where rental income goes: commissions, taxes, cleaning and mortgage.
Financing and tax: get local advice
Tax rules for a second home differ by country: whether you can deduct the mortgage interest, how rental income is taxed, and whether a holiday home counts as an investment or a second residence. Ask a local tax adviser before you buy, so the numbers you plan with are the real ones.
Insurance for a rented home
Ordinary home insurance often doesn't cover paying guests. Look for a policy that covers short-term rental: damage by guests, liability if a guest is injured, and loss of income if the home can't be rented after damage. A park owner or lender may require it too.
Before the first guest arrives
Once the home is yours, prepare the rental side:
The house. Clean, in good technical condition, and furnished for the guests you expect. Not everything has to be perfect, but everything has to work.
Your price. Set a base rate, add seasons and weekend prices, and decide your minimum stay.
Your terms. A rental agreement or booking conditions with the rental period, payment terms, cancellation policy and house rules. Our house rules checklist helps you write them.
A website and booking calendar. So guests can see when the home is free and book without emailing you.
Where to list it
Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo bring guests quickly, but take a commission on every stay and set many of the rules. Your own website costs effort to get found, but every booking there is yours. Most owners start with both, and sync the calendars so a booking on one blocks the dates on the others. Our step-by-step guide on how to get more direct bookings shows how to shift the balance over time.
Ready to rent?
Bookingmood gives you a booking calendar for your website, or a complete website, with online payments, automated messages and iCal sync with the platforms. No commission. Start your 14-day free trial once the keys are yours.