Owners

With professionalism, a friendly smile, the use of modern technology and good old-fashioned manners and respect.

A fully managed service of a small portfolio of holiday cottages means spinning many plates, calmly.

Our portfolio of holiday cottages is kept way below a hundred cottages for a reason. We like to make sure that every single guest experience, each owner interaction and the subsequent reviews are top-notch. Trying to manage too many holiday cottages only dilutes this service unless you employ enough staff. Our ratio of operational staff to properties is 14:1 and we won’t compromise on a positive work-life balance for Orange Roofs staff.

Read guest opinions of Orange Roofs on Google Reviews 

Below is a flavour of what our 5* service to holiday cottage owners enjoy.

Property Maintenance is a mixed bag but generally ranges from general maintenance to gardening. Add to that, window cleaning, refuse collection (to include recycling), linen hire, housekeeping, compliance checks and fixing any issues presented to us.  Jobs can be small like changing a tap washer to more complex issues such as managing an infestation of moths. Whatever is directed to us, we deal with it calmly working towards a swift and definite resolution. We work closely with many tradespeople in St Ives and surrounding areas so enjoy close relationships with pretty much every skilled worker required to run a smooth service. Managing properties means most things have been thrown at us from lock issues to leaking ceilings, we communicate throughout so owners are appraised regularly.

Orange Roofs is proactive in ensuring holiday homes are maintained to high standards all year round so each and every guest experiences the same comfort of high standards. We visit the holiday homes multiple times a month meaning we see areas of concern and resolve them quickly. Thorough checks are done and inspection reports are presented to owners once a year. These illustrate areas that need addressing to ensure the highest standards are achieved before moving into a new season of guest holidays.

Guests who book St Ives cottages with Orange Roofs expect luxury, quirky or both. They know we only offer holiday homes in St Ives that promise something special and can be aligned with varying budgets. We have built a solid reputation for our 5 star service and have a high percentage of repeat guest bookings and referrals. We make St Ives holidays effortless for guests.

Happy guests are at the very top of our list of proud achievements at Orange Roofs. We work hard to cover all angles and are continuously learning what matters in this business. It is an emotive business to be in yet we also have lots of processes and procedures to ‘tick off’ in order for it to be a well-oiled machine. At Orange Roofs we are mastering them both.

When guests are staying in St Ives, our local office is open 6 days a week. This means we are available to help them if they get themselves in a pickle at their holiday cottage. Our out of hours support is available 365 days a year so they are never alone with a problem.

We use technology to enhance the personal touch experience with the Orange Roofs’ App.  It gets guests to and through the front door seamlessly. At their fingertips is directions with a What3Words code. The WiFi code that they can copy and paste into their phone settings so they are instantly connected. If they get chilly, how to adjust the heating.  Where to park and what to do with refuse and recycling. Everything is covered! What it also does is keep the key safe code locked until the designated check in time. If the house is ready before the assigned check in time, we release the key safe code earlier.

We ask for guest feedback and listen intently on what they say. Every piece of feedback is shared with owners; good and bad. This means together we rejoice in the successes and work on improvements.

On the market at the moment are lots of rate manager tools that read algorithms online and tell you when to put your rates up and down. These can sometimes push rates up by 100% and drop them equally as fast. At Orange Roofs, we rely on experience and also maintaining a healthy repeat guest percentage which would be lost if one guest paid twice as much as the other for a similar period for the same house! For this reason, we build trust on strong foundations and have lots of referrals from previous guests’ family, friends and colleagues. Rates are set after determining the socio-economic landscape and maintaining an awareness of influences that may affect when and if people take holidays. At Orange Roofs, we obtain a fair and reflective rate of the holiday properties we manage and aim for great guest and owner satisfaction.

On top of staying abreast of current affairs and how they drive demand and supply, we carry out revenue analysis and study booking trends to help determine how competitive Orange Roofs’ properties are within a saturated market. Timing is key and using off the shelf software packages as well as bespoke designed tools, Sam can offer valuable insights to owners on the current market and offer key advice to staying ahead of the game.

We have our own website which we continuously strive to improve and nurture. Search engine optimisation is like a skilled sport particularly when Google keeps changing the goal posts. However, we refer to experts to keep us up to date with changes. We aim to appear in online searches for keyword searches for St Ives cottages, holiday cottages in St Ives with parking, dog-friendly holiday cottages in St Ives etc. As said, this is quite a science and art and so we aim to keep up. We use a professional property photographer who uses natural lighting as much as possible to showcase our holiday properties and reflect their true capacity to accommodate guests.

Finally, but certainly not lastly, we have great fun with our social media on both Instagram and Facebook and use this to stay close to our followers who have all joined us organically. We add new properties, promote last minute discounts, share scenic shots and support our local community and businesses too. Why not find us on Instagram or Facebook and see for yourselves?

Our owners enjoy healthy booking numbers at their holiday homes and so this means healthy bank accounts too. When a guest books, if the holiday is more than 8 weeks away, a 33% deposit is taken from the guest to secure their dates. This deposit is sent to the owner in the remittance month that follows. The 67% is then collected 8 weeks before their arrival date and this is paid to owners in the remittance month that follows the guest departure date. There is just one exception to this and that is if the booking source is AirBnB and then the balance in the month of the guest departure.

Owners can keep up to date with bookings as well as make their own booking to stay at their holiday home using an online owner log-in. This is activated once a contract is signed and the holiday home is all set up on our booking software and website. All invoices from trades such as maintenance, housekeeping and linen can be accessed via the secure owner log-in area so owners’ accountants can also be kept happy too.

Our commission is competitive yet fair so please do get in touch if you would like to know what this is. There is a fee for the initial photography in order to set the home live online and starts from £300 plus VAT (price dependant on the size of the house).

We have long established relationships with our owners where many have been with Orange Roofs from its early years from 2015. We don’t strictly have a one-size-fits-all approach and look to work flexibly depending on circumstances. Please do get in touch if you would like to know if we could fit your bill; we are all ears.

We have written a guide to choosing a holiday home to buy in St Ives, we hope you find it useful if you are not yet a St Ives cottage owner. Hopefully, it answers any questions or concerns before you take the leap into owning your own St Ives holiday cottage. Very importantly, to understand tax rules when owning a furnished holiday let (FHL) visit the HMRC website for up to date and vital information.

Our Orange Roofs office is on Park Avenue, St Ives so please do get in touch on 01736 806100 to arrange a meeting over a proper coffee and we will be very keen to help in person.

We all know that the proof is in the pudding. We rely on our guests to tell us what we are doing right and what can be done better. We listen and we act. Below are a selection of our more recent reviews on Google all confirming out 5* star service which is replicated to our owners with equal passion and professionalism.