01 · 3 min path
What are you actually buying
Lifestyle, income, or both – and being honest about it, because the three point at different parts of the island and different unit types.
Three buyers wearing the same coat
Almost everyone opens with the same sentence: somewhere nice, that pays for itself. It is a reasonable thing to want and it is three different purchases. They point at different parts of the island, different unit types, different structures and different exit routes, and the cost of not choosing is a compromise that serves neither.
The lifestyle buyer is buying time in a place. What matters is the light, the view, the drive to the things they actually do, and whether the building will still be pleasant to be in when it is nine years old. Occupancy barely matters. This buyer routinely over-weights the view and under-weights the drive: twenty-five minutes to the beach in January, in the rain, behind the scooters, is not the twenty-five minutes it was on the viewing trip.
The income buyer is buying a small hospitality business with a building attached. What matters is nightly rate, occupancy, the operator's competence and the cost line. Whether they personally like the sofa does not come into it. This buyer routinely over-weights gross yield and under-weights the operator's cut and the tax charged on gross rent, which between them take a third to a half of everything the property earns before a single repair.
Both is possible, and it costs something on each side. A unit that lets well is furnished for strangers, sited where the footfall is, and run on a programme with block-out rules. You will get four to six weeks a year in it, and you will be sharing it with people who do not know which cupboard the good glasses are in.
The question that separates them
Ask how many nights a year you intend to sleep in it. Under fourteen and you are an income buyer: buy the numbers, not the view. Over sixty and you are a lifestyle buyer, the yield model is decoration, and you should buy the place you want to be. Between the two you are the third buyer, and the honest brief is "a rental asset I can use" – a different search from "a home that pays for itself".
What the answer changes downstream
- Location. Income wants footfall and a short ride to where people eat; lifestyle can go inland for twice the plot and half the noise. These are not the same shortlist.
- Unit type. One-bedroom units produce the highest yield per dollar and are the least pleasant to live in for a month. Three-bedroom villas invert it.
- Structure. Letting short-stay commercially needs a licence and something that can hold one. Living in it does not.
- Furnishing. A rental fit-out is specified for turnover and replacement, not for you, and it is a business cost.
- Exit. An income buyer sells to another income buyer, who will want to see real booking data. Start keeping it on day one.
Write the brief down in one sentence before you look at anything. If you cannot write it, you are not ready to be shown units. You are ready to be sold one.
Written by us · 3 min read · stage 1 of 9