Making money with caravans

[Panky123]

I have just come into a bit of money and trying to think of ways to invest is seriously hard work lol
I live in Dorset on the coast, so we have a ton of caravan sites with static caravans, these can be bought for easily £10k so with the site fees etc. I worked out a rough cost of about £15k to have the caravan on the site ready to rent out, with the prices that these caravan sites charge customers to stay the week in the summer time, am I being really naive to say that this is a great way to earn a profit long term?

 

[MBE2017]

No, your not.

 

[Mr D]

Depends how much the caravan is rented out and how much you need to spend. It is possible to make a loss on a caravan.

 

[Matthew1982]

There's usually more than just site fees to take in to account though such as council tax, utilities, insurance, repairs & maintenance. You will also need to advertise and work out a booking system for swapping keys over and handing deposits back after checking that everything's been left in a reasonable condition.

Many sites will only allow caravans to stay on site until they reach a certain age too so then you'll have to dispose of it or move it.

 

[Mitch3473]

Then there's cleaning and laundry....To be fair, a lot of people round here have holiday homes and caravans on farms and sites etc etc but they are usually second or passive incomes. Having said that, a few of our clients have rather a lot of statics and dont seem to go short, if you know what I mean. They are landowners and farmers though.

 

[TomJ83]

I think you will have to take into account staff costs. There must be someone who hands out the keys to the visitors, cleans, control that the caravans are left in good condition etc. Then you also need a good website. A good one should have a booking system and payment system so everything is sorted that way. Also you have to take into account advertising costs. Why should people pick your static caravans?

I have seen on Tripadvisor that some people rent their static caravans. It's interesting as they have a booking system built in. So you could perhaps see what they charge for this service. Moreover, you should bear in mind that it's a seasonal business so there could be some cash flow issues if you haven't got another source of income.