How to market a second home or holiday let for sale

Marketing a second home or holiday let between seasons comes down to one core challenge: the property is almost always empty, and empty rooms are genuinely difficult to sell from. The most effective approach combines strong, furnished-looking photography (including clearly labelled virtually staged images), honest income and occupancy data where it exists, and portal listings timed around peak buyer search windows. Get those three things right and a vacant holiday let can compete confidently with properties that are lived-in year-round.

Why second homes and holiday lets are harder to market than standard properties

Second homes and holiday lets share a common problem at the point of sale: by the time an instruction is confirmed, the property is typically stripped back. Soft furnishings are in storage, beds are bare, and the kitchen looks utilitarian rather than inviting. Buyers browsing Rightmove or Zoopla make snap judgements from a thumbnail. A cold, echoey-looking lounge rarely wins the click, let alone the viewing.

There is also a buyer expectation mismatch. Someone considering a Cornish cottage or a Lake District barn conversion is buying a lifestyle, not just square footage. If the listing photos fail to evoke that feeling, the property can linger even when the price and location are right. According to the NAR's Profile of Home Staging, 83% of buyers' agents say staging helps buyers picture a home as their own — a finding that applies with particular force to lifestyle-led purchases like holiday properties.

Step-by-step: how to market a second home or holiday let effectively

1. Start with the photography brief, not the photos themselves. Before the photographer arrives, walk the property and decide which rooms need furnishing visually. Bedrooms, the main living space, and any outdoor seating area are the highest-priority rooms. If the property is empty, plan to use virtual staging on those rooms so the photographer captures the correct angles — wide, well-lit shots from corner positions work best for staging.
2. Stage empty rooms — virtually or physically — before listing. Physical staging of a rural holiday let is slow and expensive: hire costs, transport, and setup can run into the hundreds before a single photo is taken. Virtual staging delivers the same furnished-room result the same working day, at a fraction of the cost, and every image is clearly labelled 'virtually staged' so you stay fully compliant with Rightmove, Zoopla, ASA and CMA guidelines. This is not about hiding the property's condition — it is about helping buyers understand how the space could actually function.
3. Shoot the location and setting, not just the interior. A second home buyer is buying proximity to the beach, the village pub, the walking trails. Exterior shots at golden hour, views from windows, and nearby landmarks belong in the listing. Include them in your image sequence after the hero interior shots.
4. Write copy that speaks to the buyer's lifestyle, then backs it up with facts. Open with an evocative but honest description of what the location offers. Then move into specifics: approximate gross rental yield if available, any existing bookings that could transfer, council tax or business rates status, and the local planning authority's position on short-term lets. Buyers of holiday lets in England should be aware of the furnished holiday lettings (FHL) tax regime changes that came into force in 2025 — be accurate and direct rather than speculative.
5. Price with the right comparable set. Holiday lets and second homes do not always compare cleanly to primary residences in the same postcode. Look at sold prices for similar leisure-use properties across the wider area, not just the immediate street. If the property has a rental track record, gross yield can serve as a useful sanity check alongside price-per-square-foot.
6. Time your portal launch around buyer search behaviour. Many buyers of holiday lets start seriously searching in January and February, when the idea of a summer property feels most appealing. A second launch push in September, when buyers are thinking ahead to the following year, can also be effective. Avoid launching into the flattest search windows if you can control the timeline.
7. Prepare a vendor-ready information pack. Serious buyers of holiday lets ask detailed questions early: utility costs, broadband speeds in rural areas, access arrangements, historical bookings, any restrictive covenants on lettings use. Having this ready before you list speeds up offers and reduces fall-throughs.
8. Use your listing to do the compliance work upfront. Any virtually staged images must be clearly labelled as such on every portal where they appear. This is not optional — it is required by Rightmove's own image guidelines and aligns with ASA standards. Being upfront about this builds trust with buyers rather than eroding it.

The vacant property photography problem — and the practical fix

Estate agents handling holiday let instructions often describe the same frustration: they know the property is genuinely special, but the photos do not do it justice. A beamed cottage bedroom with bare mattresses and rolled-up duvets does not tell the story that a dressed bed, a reading lamp, and a textured throw would tell.

Virtual staging solves this without asking the vendor to hire a van, buy furniture, or wait weeks for a physical staging company to become available. Send the empty-room photos, specify the style — coastal, traditional, contemporary — and get back portal-ready images the same working day. Each image is clearly labelled 'virtually staged', so buyers, portals, and vendors all know exactly what they are looking at. The result is a listing that competes with dressed properties, not one that looks apologetically bare.

Compliance: what estate agents need to know about virtually staged images

UK portals and advertising standards bodies are clear: edited or enhanced images must be disclosed. Rightmove's own guidance requires that virtually staged images are labelled as such. The ASA and CMA both expect that property marketing does not create a misleading impression of a property's actual condition or contents.

Virtual staging of empty rooms — where furniture and soft furnishings are added to a genuinely bare space — sits comfortably within these rules, provided the labelling is in place. What is not acceptable is using staging to remove visible defects, alter room dimensions, or conceal structural issues. A clearly labelled virtually staged image of an empty bedroom is honest marketing. It shows buyers how the space can function, not a version of the property that does not exist.

What buyers of second homes and holiday lets actually want to see

Pitching for the holiday let instruction: what vendors care about

Vendors of second homes are often emotionally attached to the property. They may have owned it for years, spent summers there with family, and feel acutely aware that the listing photos need to do it justice. Arriving at a valuation meeting with a clear plan for the photography — including how you will handle the empty-room problem — is a meaningful differentiator.

Showing a before-and-after example of a virtually staged room, and explaining that every staged image will be clearly labelled, tends to land well with vendors who are worried about how the property will look. It demonstrates that you have thought about their specific situation rather than applying a generic approach.

Frequently asked questions