The gross holiday let premium looks generous at 61% for a 3-bed Leeds house, but costs reshape the picture meaningfully. This article lays out the real after-cost numbers for both a 3-bed house and a 2-bed apartment because their cost structures diverge: apartments carry service charges that houses avoid, while houses carry higher entry prices and heavier furnishing loads.
3-Bed House: Holiday Let Nets £8,847 vs Buy-to-Let at £6,637
A median Leeds 3-bed house sells for roughly £249,878 and grosses £14,057 as a buy-to-let or £22,576 as a holiday let at the market-average occupancy of 41%. The table below assumes self-managed holiday letting and agent-managed buy-to-let, which matches how most Leeds landlords actually run each strategy.
| holiday let | buy-to-let | |
|---|---|---|
| Property price | £249,878 | £249,878 |
| Gross revenue | £22,576 | £14,057 |
| Airbnb fees (15.5%) | £3,499 | — |
| Rental management | — | £1,309 |
| Insurance | £1,255 | £512 |
| Maintenance | £4,923 | £3,298 |
| Utilities | £1,980 | £230 |
| council tax / business rates | £0 (typically zero with Small Business Rate Relief on the holiday let) | £0 (paid by the tenant under a standard AST) |
| holiday let tax | $0 | — |
| Total costs | £13,729 | £7,420 |
| Net income | £8,847 | £6,637 |
| Net yield | 3.5% | 2.7% |
Airbnb fees shown at 15.5% reflect the host-only model most UK listings use. Vrbo charges roughly 8% of bookings and Booking.com closer to 15%, so a mixed-platform strategy can trim total commissions if a listing performs well across channels. Direct bookings, where the landlord takes all the revenue, typically require a dedicated website and review-building time before they produce meaningful volume.
Airbnb Fees and Furnishing Replacement Eat Most of the House Premium
Holiday letting adds three cost lines that buy-to-let simply does not carry, and together they absorb most of the revenue uplift. Airbnb fees alone total £3,499 per year, holiday let insurance runs £1,255 compared with £512 for a standard landlord policy, and utilities of £1,980 fall on the operator rather than the tenant. Maintenance also climbs materially because the holiday let figure of £4,923 bakes in furnishing wear and replacement that does not exist on the buy-to-let maintenance line of £3,298.
Once every line is totalled, holiday let costs reach £13,729 versus £7,420 for buy-to-let. The gross premium of 61% therefore converts to a smaller but still positive net advantage: £8,847 in the pocket under holiday letting compared with £6,637 under buy-to-let.
2-Bed Apartment: Lower Entry Price, Service Charge Required
The median 2-bed Leeds apartment sells for roughly £157,532, a materially lower entry point than the £249,878 house, but apartments introduce a service charge that houses do not pay. The same self-managed holiday let against agent-managed buy-to-let assumptions apply below.
| holiday let | buy-to-let | |
|---|---|---|
| Property price | £157,532 | £157,532 |
| Gross revenue | £15,943 | £11,626 |
| Airbnb fees (15.5%) | £2,471 | — |
| buy-to-let management | — | £1,046 |
| Insurance | £787 | £336 |
| Maintenance | £3,234 | £2,079 |
| Utilities | £1,374 | £129 |
| council tax / business rates | £0 (typically zero with Small Business Rate Relief on the holiday let) | £0 (paid by the tenant under a standard AST) |
| holiday let tax | $0 | — |
| Service charge | £1,603 | £1,603 |
| Total costs | £10,776 | £6,499 |
| Net income | £5,167 | £5,127 |
| Net yield | 3.3% | 3.3% |
The service charge of £1,603 appears in both columns because it is a property-level liability attached to the leasehold, not a function of whether the flat is let short or long. Leasehold investors should also budget for ground rent reviews and eventual lease-extension costs, neither of which shows up in an annual P&L but both of which affect total returns at exit.
Apartments Beat Houses on Buy-to-Let Yield; Houses Win on Holiday Let Net Income
The two tables tell a different story depending on strategy. For buy-to-let, apartments post a net yield of 3.3% versus 2.7% for houses because the lower entry price of £157,532 outweighs the service charge drag. For holiday letting, houses return 3.5% compared with 3.3% for apartments, reflecting the higher nightly rate that a 3-bed house commands and a broader guest pool of families and contractor groups that apartments struggle to capture.
Which property type wins therefore depends on which strategy the investor plans to run. An investor committed to buy-to-let can deploy less capital for a better net yield by buying a flat. An investor committed to holiday letting gets more net income per property by buying a 3-bed house, although the absolute capital requirement is higher and furnishing costs of roughly £13,500 sit on top of the purchase price.
Holiday Letting Only Breaks Even at 26% Occupancy
The gross break-even occupancy for holiday letting a 3-bed Leeds house is 26%, the booked-night share at which holiday let gross revenue equals buy-to-let annual rent. This is the floor, not the target. Market average occupancy in Leeds sits at 41%, comfortably above that break-even, which is why the holiday let numbers work on paper for typical suburban stock. Below 26% occupancy the holiday let does not even match buy-to-let on gross revenue, so the strategy fails outright. The actual after-costs break-even is higher than this gross figure because holiday letting carries platform fees, higher insurance, utilities, and furnishing-loaded maintenance that buy-to-let does not.
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Hiring a Letting Agent Drops Holiday Let Net Yield to 1.7%
The tables above assume self-management, which is the default setting in the dashboard and the honest baseline for comparing the two strategies. Most first-time holiday let investors underestimate the workload: guest messaging, key handover, linen turnover, pricing adjustments, and review response easily consume 10 to 15 hours a week for a single property during peak season.
Hiring a professional holiday let manager in Leeds costs around £4,515 per year on a 3-bed house, roughly 20% of gross revenue, which drops net yield from 3.5% to 1.7%. At that level the premium over buy-to-let narrows considerably, and the investor needs to decide whether the time saved is worth the yield sacrifice. Many Leeds operators run two or three holiday lets self-managed before moving to a professional manager, spreading the overhead fixed costs across more properties.
Tax Changes in April 2025 Removed the Furnished Holiday Let Advantage
The Furnished Holiday Let tax regime was abolished from April 2025, removing the favourable treatment that previously let holiday let investors deduct full mortgage interest, claim capital allowances on furnishings, and access reduced Capital Gains Tax rates on sale. Holiday lets and buy-to-let are now taxed equivalently, with mortgage interest only available as a basic-rate tax credit rather than a full deduction. This makes the after-cost financial comparison in this article more important than ever, because the tax code no longer tilts the answer in favour of holiday letting.
Stamp duty also applies on purchase, with the 5% second-home surcharge (raised from 3% in the October 2024 Budget) hitting most investor purchases. Investors should confirm exact stamp duty with their solicitor because thresholds and surcharges change frequently. Outside Greater London, the 90-night cap does not apply because the Deregulation Act 2015 restricts that rule to London boroughs only, but Leeds investors converting a former main home to a holiday let may still require planning permission for material change of use, particularly in residential conservation areas.
Leeds Sits Close to the UK National Median on Buy-to-Let Yield
The 5.6% gross yield on a 3-bed Leeds house compares with a UK national median of 5.7% and a Yorkshire and The Humber regional median of 5.6%. Leeds therefore offers fairly typical buy-to-let economics for northern England, with the real spread coming from suburb selection rather than the city average. The dashboard exposes per-postcode yields for all 192 Leeds postcode districts, which matters because top-yielding areas like Harehills/Richmond Hill (LS9) return 10.4% while the cheapest postcodes sit well below the city median.
These are city medians; individual postcode districts diverge significantly. The dashboard shows postcode-level data for every bedroom count and property type, letting investors stress-test the numbers against the specific area they are targeting. Explore rental data in the dashboard to run the same after-cost analysis on any Leeds postcode, or see the market score methodology and data sources for how these figures are compiled. Barkerend (BD3) Leads Bradford Yields at 10.1% covers a similar after-cost question for another northern market, and Strensall (YO32) Leads North Yorkshire Yields at 5.9% looks at the same after-cost question in a smaller North Yorkshire market.
Data reflects market conditions as of May 2026.
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This information is for educational purposes only and should not be considered financial or legal advice. Regulations and market conditions change frequently. Verify current rules with local authorities before making investment decisions.
Methodology and Assumptions
Defaults used in the figures above. All inputs are adjustable in the dashboard.
How available nights are determined
Available nights default to 330 per year, reflecting an active operator with minimal blocked time. Where local regulations cap whole-home short-term lets (for example London at 90 nights, New South Wales at 180), the cap is applied. In markets where short-term rental requires owner-occupancy or is otherwise prohibited for investment properties, available nights drop to zero.
How occupancy is measured
The percentage of available nights that get booked, drawn from market data. A property listed for 200 nights with 100 bookings shows 50% occupancy. Adjustable in the dashboard.
Long-term rental management default
Includes a 9% letting agent fee, the standard arrangement for UK buy-to-let investors who use a managing agent. Self-managed landlords can adjust this to zero in the dashboard.
Short-term rental management default
Set to self-managed (zero management fee) by default, the most common arrangement for individual investors. Hiring a professional manager typically costs 20-25% of gross revenue and reduces net yield proportionally. Toggle in the dashboard.
How property tax is calculated
Council tax in the UK is typically paid by the tenant for long-term rentals, so it is excluded from buy-to-let costs. Holiday lets are usually assessed as business rates and may qualify for Small Business Rate Relief, often reducing this to zero.
Local regulations
Verify current rules with local authorities before investing.
Sampling and data sources
Short-term rental yield figures reflect properties currently listed on short-term rental platforms. In high-tourism markets, listings tend to concentrate in central postcodes, which can pull city-median yields above what residential areas of the same city would achieve. Yields for any specific suburb may differ materially from the city-wide median.
For metric definitions and broader methodology, see the About page.