By Roshan L. D’Silva · Smart Buy
A holiday home is used differently from the house you live in, and the layout that suits it is different too. Estate agents' floor plans are optimised for the family who will be there every day. You will not be.
Here is what actually matters, in roughly the order it matters.
Two equal bedrooms beat one grand one
This is the single most useful thing in this article.
Holiday homes are overwhelmingly used by two couples or two families travelling together — you and friends, you and your grown children, you and your brother's family. A layout with one large principal suite and three small rooms creates a social problem on every visit: someone has to be given the good room, and everyone notices.
Two roughly equal main bedrooms, both with en-suite bathrooms, removes the question entirely. It is worth more to the enjoyment of the house than almost any other feature, and if you ever let it, it is worth real money — two-couple bookings are a large share of the market and they filter for exactly this.
En suites, not a family bathroom
At home, a shared bathroom is normal. On holiday, with people who are not your immediate family, it is the thing that quietly makes a week feel long.
If you are choosing between a fourth bedroom and giving the third bedroom its own bathroom, give it the bathroom. If you are choosing between a bigger sitting room and an extra shower room off the pool terrace, think hard — wet people walking through a house is the most common design complaint owners report.
Somewhere for everyone to be when it rains
The mistake is counting bedrooms and forgetting living space. A house that sleeps eight and seats five is uncomfortable on the first wet day, and there is always a wet day.
Count the seats. Not sofa cushions — actual places a person can sit comfortably and read for an hour. Then count the places at the table. A holiday house's dining table is its most-used object, and it should take everyone at once without anyone eating on a stool at the counter. If two families will stay together, that is eight to ten places.
A covered outdoor room — a proper roofed terrace, not a parasol — is the highest-value square metre in most warm-climate holiday homes. It doubles the usable house in summer and it works in rain.
The kitchen is used more than you think, and by more people
People imagine eating out every night and then cook most nights, because restaurants with six people and two children are a project.
What matters is not a professional kitchen but a sociable one: room for two or three people to work without colliding, and a position where whoever is cooking is still part of the evening rather than shut away. Storage matters more than in a home kitchen, because holiday cooking is done in bulk.
Power, water and connectivity are features, not utilities
In a great many attractive holiday markets these are not a given, and they determine whether the house is usable.
- Power. Ask about outages honestly — how often, how long, what season. If they are routine, a house without a generator or battery backup is a house you cannot let and will not enjoy in a heatwave.
- Water. Mains, well or delivered? Is there a storage tank, and how many days does it hold? Pressure for two showers at once?
- Internet. Now non-negotiable, for guests and for anyone who needs to extend a stay by working. Check the actual line, not the advertised area coverage.
- Cooling and heating. A house that is unbearable in August or unheatable in February has just lost you half its weeks.
Amenities: which ones earn their cost
Every amenity is a running cost and a maintenance obligation. Some repay it.
A pool is the one that most reliably justifies itself, both for your own use and for letting — in many markets it is the difference between being listed and being invisible. It also needs servicing every week of the year, whether or not you are there.
A hot tub is popular with guests and disproportionately troublesome: chemistry, heating cost and the most common source of complaints. Worth it in cool climates and shoulder seasons; questionable in a hot one.
Shared club facilities — gym, tennis, a clubhouse — are usually better value than private ones, because the cost is spread. Check the service charge and how it has moved over five years, not just today's figure.
Then think about the boring things
Where does luggage go? Where do wet towels and swimwear dry? Is there a place to lock away your own belongings between visits — which matters enormously if you let it? Can someone with a bad knee reach a bedroom and a bathroom without stairs, because at some point somebody will need that.
Which brings us to the last question, and it is the one people find least romantic: could you still use this house comfortably at eighty? We come back to that at the end of this series.
None of this is advice about a specific property, and we take no commission from anyone selling one.