Becoming a buy-to-let landlord in Andalucia is not a bad move, provided you comply with the new regulations on holiday rentals! Returns can be excellent and demand is growing for self-catering accommodation at the Costa del Sol. The new regulation on holiday lettings means to protect property owners and tourists alike.
Six months ago Andalucia's authorities introduced new regulations that force property owners to register their apartments, fincas and villas as “tourism businesses”, if they wanted to advertise them as holiday rentals. Now official records show that self-catering properties represent 50 percent of holiday accommodation along the Costa del Sol and 30 percent of hotel-based accommodation in the whole of Malaga Province.
The figures only capture holiday rental properties where owners have registered them with the Tourism Register of Andalucia in compliance with the new regulations. The register shows that there are 26,321 places available in 5,321 holiday lets. In total, this means there are ca. 30,000 beds available from “private” landlords letting their properties via tourism sites like Booking.com or Airbnb.com. Indeed, municipalities like Casares, Nerja and Rincón de la Victoria offer more privately-owned holiday accommodation than local hotels.
And this is just the beginning: of the first 10,000+ applications, only 5,321 properties have completed the whole process of registration so far, says Monsalud Galindo, delegate of the Junta de Andalucía’s Tourism and Culture in Malaga.
Andalucia's hoteliers had lobbied long and hard for legalisation of privately-owned holiday accommodation to make it a much fairer sector overall. Despite the trend for self-catering accommodation, hotels did very well indeed this year, showing record occupancy and room rates throughout the entire summer season.
Marbella tops the list of the Tourism Department's study: here more than 1,000 properties have already made it onto the register in the first six months, since the new regulations came into force. Tourists can now choose from among 6,000 different self-catering places or stay in 14,593 hotel-based places. There's clearly plenty of room to invest in buy-to-let apartments in this market!
Around 50 percent of available places in the city of Malaga are self-catering holiday lets. There are officially 72 hotels, not counting pensions, B&Bs and backpacker hostels, offering 8,562 beds for overnight stays.
In Nerja, official figures show that Nerja's hotels recorded occupancy levels of ca. 90 percent throughout this summer. There are just 25 hotels in the town, offering 2,910 places to holidaymakers.
What would have happened if there hadn't been 677 registered holiday rental properties available for tourists? The 3,220 visitors Nerja's private landlords accommodated would have had to go elsewhere! Registration means advertising one's property legally on all the big tourism sites, and they are recording a growing trend that calls for rapid expansion.
In the municipality of Casares there are just three hotels offering tourists 200 overnight places. Here the number of self-catering properties numbers is so high that there are twice as many beds available than offered by local hotels.
Growing Trend for Self-catering Holidays
Responding to the growing trend, Airbnb.com, a market leader, has just launched its “Trips” platform to expand it current offerings. Airbnb's current platform shows ca. three million registered homes across the globe. Trips aims to increase this further, and the platform will also feature experts' recommendations on best leisure activities on offer locally and where to meet like-minded people at their chosen holiday destination.
Airbnb.com's CEO, Brian Chesky, announced at the launch: “We want travelling to become magical again, by placing people at the centre of the experience.”
Rival platform Booking.com also confirms the trend for self-catering accommodation is growing fast. The platform conducted its own study into travel trends this year, showing eight benchmark factors that reveal what type of travel people will be looking for in future. There is a definite move away from traditional hotels and towards holiday homes, although Spanish hoteliers can breathe a sigh of relief, as the study also reveals travellers are still more likely to book a Spanish hotel room than self-catering accommodation.
Constant Vigilance to maintain Standards
As more and more private landlords are registering their holiday lets, Monsalud Gallindo warns that only constant vigilance will prevent unsuitable properties from making it onto the register.
“We are permanently monitoring the different Internet platforms which market holiday properties, and we have had meetings with some of them, to detect properties which are illegal and we have taken action against about a dozen,” she explains, adding that the new regulations have helped to embolden local people to voice their complaints for the first time and to tell authorities about what may be illegally let properties.
Delegate Gallindo said: “The complaints we are receiving about the holiday properties are mainly from people who are disturbed by noise and bother. We always advise them to ring the police, who will issue a report and we can then evaluate the complaint.”
Under Tourism Law 13/2011, which includes regulations concerning coexistence in communities, landlords letting directly or managing agents can insist that tourists vacate their properties within 24 hours, if guests don't comply with said rules, and in extreme cases landlords or managing agents can take guests to court.
The new regulations afford owners of registered holiday lets protection, which is not the case for self-catering properties let out illegally. Guests are also protected, as far better standards of holiday accommodation will now be offered.