New Owners Information

Why choose Coast & Country Cottages as your holiday letting agent?

Having made the decision to let your holiday home you are now faced with a number of options...

1. Handle the letting programme yourself.  If you take this option you will need to make yourself available for customer enquiries on a daily basis - prospective tenants do not generally wait around long enough for answer machine messages to be returned! You will also have to consider the costs of advertising your property and the expense of administration, equipment, postage and printing.
2. Sign up to a large national or regional company. Many medium-sized and larger agencies will, no doubt, make exciting 'promises' of long letting programmes and more letting income than you could dream of...!  However, even if you are impressed by the promises you will have to pay a much higher rate of commission for the privilege and hope prospective customers can find your property amongst the many hundreds (or indeed thousands) that lie within the brochure. Have any of the call-centre staff ever heard of the South Hams, and do they honestly care how well your property performs?
3. Create a partnership with a local agency. As an agent based in the heart of the South Hams, and with offices in Salcombe and Dartmouth, we can offer a 'hands-on' approach with extensive local knowledge and a clear understanding of what is required to make a successful holiday! Below are some more specific reasons why Coast & Country Cottages are the agency that can provide all this and more ...

• Long established South Hams agency. We have earned a strong reputation amongst owners for our quality of service and 'can-do' attitude. There are very few matters that we haven't handled over the years and we are quite prepared to get our 'hands dirty' if the need arises!
• Experienced staff with first hand knowledge of our properties and the locality.  As a matter of policy we visit our properties on a regular basis and as a consequence our staff are able to give accurate and descriptive information to potential tenants. In addition, as our team all live in, and have a good knowledge of the South Hams area, tenants can get very specific and local assistance before choosing a particular location. Finally, as our offices are open six/seven days a week (with out-of-hours messages collected on an hourly basis) we are able to deal with all enquiries and other issues promptly and effectively.
• The latest automated bookings system for holiday letting ensures we achieve a high conversion rate of bookings from enquiries. The vast majority of our clients have been visiting the area for many years and our repeat booking process has created a significant loyalty factor that benefits owners and holiday-makers alike!
• A professionally designed web site with individual page allocation for each property under the Coast & Country Cottages banner. Navigated by an advanced search facility with online availability and bookings the holiday-maker can refine the selection process to their own criteria. Over half of all new enquiries now come through the internet and we are therefore constantly refining and improving the site to reflect this change in the market.
• Strategic annual advertising and marketing programmes including national press, regional guides, tourist information centres and other key media in the national tourism marketing network.
• A full colour 250 page brochure widely requested and circulated using our extensive database of past and present holidaymakers. With great clarity this attractive publication offers detailed specifications and photograph/s of each property giving at-a-glance price information in a user-friendly format.
• Competitive rates of commission starting at just 17% + VAT (for a single property).
• Holiday Cancellation Insurance policy ensures all bookings are guaranteed once confirmed. Only a handful of agents offer this service that ensures every booking is paid up in full even if the tenant cancels with us and the property remains empty!

Coast and Country Cottages offer a specialised holiday letting service - we do not sell houses, nor do we undertake any other business activity. All of our energies and endeavours are directed purely at holiday letting and providing you as an owner the most complete service in the business!