How much can you use your holiday home yourself if you let it out?

Whether to use the holiday home themselves whilst letting it out is the issue that determines whether many homeowners dare to take the plunge at all. The fear is understandable: the house was bought for the family, not to be turned into a commodity, and the thought of being locked out of your own home during the winter holidays is unpleasant. The short answer is that you decide entirely for yourself which weeks you keep for yourself. The longer and more honest answer is that the weeks you’d most like to have are precisely the weeks that pay for the holiday home – and that is the trade-off this article is about.

There is no one-size-fits-all model. Some owners let out their properties for the whole winter and go away themselves in May, whilst others keep two weeks in the middle of the peak season and accept whatever the cost may be. Both decisions are perfectly reasonable as long as they are made consciously. If you want to see how much this amounts to in kronor, the starting point is how much your mountain cabin can generate over the course of a season – that is the figure against which the whole assessment must be weighed up.

Short answer: it’s up to you – but the weeks are worth different amounts

You keep the weeks you want. There is no requirement to give up the whole season, and no one can take away your right to use your own house. The only factor at play is finance: income from a mountain season is extremely unevenly spread throughout the year. A few weeks account for a disproportionately large share of the year’s income, whilst the majority of the calendar yields significantly less per night.

The financial implications are easy to work out: keeping a week open in November costs you almost nothing in lost revenue. Keeping the same number of days open over New Year, the winter holidays or Easter costs a completely different amount. If you choose to do it anyway, do it because that week is worth it for your family, not because you weren’t aware of the difference.

How to block out your own weeks in practice

In practical terms, you do it yourself in the owners’ portal where you can block off weeks. You simply select the time slots you want to keep for yourself, and they will immediately become invisible on the booking calendar. No one can book a time slot you have blocked, and you don’t need to ask anyone for permission.

However, the practical advice is to block them off early. Mountain accommodation is booked well in advance, and a week that is blocked off in December – when it has already been booked in March – is no longer yours to block. So establish a fixed routine: decide on your own weeks ahead of each season, block them off as soon as the season opens for bookings, and treat the rest of the calendar as available for letting.

Which weeks cost the most to keep for yourself

The price schedule for Sälen follows the school holidays and weekends, and it is more or less the same every year. Prices are highest at New Year, during the winter sports holiday weeks and at Easter. Next come Christmas, the other winter weeks and winter weekends. Prices are lowest in early December, during the weeks between the January holidays, in late winter after Easter and throughout the summer months, apart from a few weeks when events take place.

Many owners come to a realisation here that changes their entire planning: the mountains are at their best for their own family precisely during the weeks that are cheapest to keep. The light in March and April, the warmth of the spring sun, empty slopes at the end of the season and a whole mountain to yourself in September. Anyone who moves their mountain holiday from week 9 to week 15 often enjoys a better holiday – and a significantly better annual statement.

Rent out for the whole season or just part of it? Two common models

Two approaches are predominant amongst owners in Sälen.

• A full season with your own weeks during the low season. The house is available throughout the winter, and the owner uses it in spring, summer and autumn. It offers the highest return and the simplest planning, and is ideal for those who view the house as an investment with practical value rather than the other way round.
• A mixed season, but with one standout week. The owner keeps one or two weeks during the high season – often the same week every year, as is the family tradition – and lets out the rest. This costs them in lost income, but preserves the holiday experience that was the very reason for buying the house in the first place.

There’s no need to choose a model for good. Many people start with the second one and switch to the first once they’ve seen what the season actually has to offer. We describe how the collaboration works in practical terms below How the collaboration works, step by step.

Living in the house whilst hosting guests: cleaning, wear and tear, and practical logistics

A personal stay is, in practice, just another guest changeover, and should be planned as such. The house must be cleaned after you have left, just as it would be after a guest, consumables must be restocked, and linen must be washed. The simplest approach is to arrange your own stay to coincide with the same changeover days as the rental and to follow the same cleaning routine – that way, there will be no gaps in the calendar and no surprises for the next group of guests.

A common mistake is to schedule your own stay in the middle of a week. This creates two half-periods that are difficult to let out, meaning you lose more income than the value of those days. Schedule your own days to coincide with a change-over day, and they’ll simply pay for themselves.

Personal belongings and private spaces – what works and what doesn’t

Most owners want to keep something of their own in the house, and that’s perfectly fine as long as it’s well thought out. A locked storage room or a locked cupboard for personal belongings works well. Locking off an entire bedroom is less effective – it affects the property’s capacity and thus both its price and demand, often by more than the space is actually worth.

When it comes to interior design and personal items, there’s a simple principle: anything left on display will be used. Family photographs, heirlooms and favourite vinyl records belong in the locked storage room, whilst the home’s furnishings should be chosen to withstand many guests whilst still feeling personal. This is also one of the factors that determines whether a house belongs in the premium segment – the criteria are described below for homeowners.

How to plan a year that brings in income and gives you your own weeks in the mountains

Turn your planning into an annual routine in four steps. First, work out how many days you realistically use – most people greatly overestimate this. Then allocate them to where they cost the least, with the exception of the one week that really matters to the family. Add them to your calendar before the season starts. Finally, review your planning after the season: did you use your weeks, and were they worth the cost?

Summary – plan the year rather than choosing sides

The question of whether to use your holiday home yourself whilst letting it out isn’t an either/or situation. You keep the weeks you want, and the only cost is the income those weeks would have generated. Book your own nights during the low season when they’re practically free, keep the one peak week that really matters, list them early on the owner portal and let them follow the standard changeover days. That way, you’ll have both a property that pays for itself and a property that’s still yours. If you’re wondering whether using an agency is the right way to go at all, we’ve compared the options in let it out yourself or through an agency.