What with the floods and other awful weather over the past few weeks, now might hardly seem the best time to promote holidaying in Blighty, but think about it for a moment. No queues at the airport. No problems with the children getting sunburnt. Indeed, holiday letting in the UK seems to be rocking along very nicely, thank you. It’s such a cash cow that some people living in tourist magnets such as Cornwall now insist on moving out and renting their home throughout the summer.

A friend has bought a small former hotel near Land’s End for just this reason. Built in the 1970s, it has six bedrooms and three bathrooms. Once it is refurbished, she reckons she can make £15,000 or so by letting it out for the summer holidays. Where will she and her family go during that time? “Oh, we will descend on my mother. And, you know, go camping for a bit,” she says breezily. Well, with that sort of money to be made, why not?

But is it as easy as that? “I won’t entertain letting out family homes unless residents can move out for a minimum of three months,” says Austyn Hallworth, managing director of the Penzance-based West Cornwall Cottage Holidays (www.westcornwall cottageholidays.com). “There is quite a lot of work to do to bring a family home up to the standard visitors expect. People now pay a lot to holiday in Cornwall.”

They certainly do. Through his company, you can have your summer hols in a cottage that sleeps eight overlooking the dramatic island of St Michael’s Mount for £1,453 a week, or pay £444 for a tiny two-bed cottage in Mousehole.

BACKGROUND

• Tales of a landlady: Tax reforms

• Into the sunset

BACKGROUND

• Tales of a landlady: Degrees of success

• Tales of a landlady: It pays to shop around

• Tales of a landlady: Residents only

• The ties that bind

• How low can you go?

BACKGROUND

• Tales of a landlady: Avoiding the agents

• Tales of a landlady: In the dock

• Tales of a landlady: the age of reason

• Tales of a landlady: Heroes and villains

• Tales of a landlady: High maintenance

BACKGROUND

• Back to the ’burbs

• A waste of energy?

• Tenants like gardens, but not tending them

• In the doghouse

• Parking mad

It’s eviction time

Can investors profit from the rise in repossessions?

• It’s eviction time

BACKGROUND

• Do property workshops work?

• A letting gamble

• Spread betting

• When buy-to-let turns from a hobby into a living

Tales of a landlady: Persistent complaint

How can lettings agents justify annual renewal fees, asks Rosie Millard

BACKGROUND

• Landlords: halo or horns?

• Bidding wars

• Time to quit the ring?

Related Links

• Britain's best holiday home hotspots, 2007

• Second-homeowners: scourge or saviour?

Hallworth has more than 140 properties in his brochure. Who owns them? “About 60% of my landlords are outsiders and 40% are people who live in the county,” he says. “The outsiders have bought for a number of reasons. Primarily pensions, but also a love of Cornwall and a wish to get on the first rung of the property ladder here.”

Prices in west Cornwall are a lot more reasonable than in the east of the county or in Devon. Or, heaven help us, Dorset. Hallworth says you can get a dinky two-bedroom terraced former miner’s cottage inland around St Just for about £200,000. A place with sea views somewhere sexy such as Sennen Cove might cost £400,000 or more. But that’s still a long way from the £1m-plus price tags of some of the flash places in celeb-happy Rock or Padstow.

“West Cornwall is the last frontier in terms of holiday-house prices,” he says. “But even here there are hot spots.” His top three? Sennen, Marazion and Penzance. “Penzance is becoming very upmarket. There’s a Michelin-starred restaurant here now.” Plus, about 15 flights a day arrive in Newquay from all over the UK.

Hallworth says the occupancy rate for a decent holiday cottage is about 30 weeks a year. That seems a bit on the high side to me, but then, taking a holiday in Britain is almost something worth boasting about these days. It seems a lot more chic to be heading to north Norfolk, Dorset or Cornwall than clambering aboard a chartered plane for Sardinia, along with 300 wailing infants and a stag party.

And so, now the smart money is holidaying here, landlords are able to charge more than £1,000 a week for their holiday home – as long as it is in the right place.

“You need to be by the sea for the main holiday,” says Richard Savage, who has three Cotswold cottages that he rents out with Rural Retreats (www.ruralretreats.co.uk). “We have a high occupancy rate, but largely from people who are taking second holidays here. I spent all my childhood holidays in Cornwall, and I’m glad it’s coming back into vogue. Beautiful, clean, cold water – it makes the Mediterranean feel positively septic.”

Joy Gorst, a landlady with eight long-term rented houses, has what she calls a “heavenly” holiday let in north Devon, overlooking the sea. She bought it last year for £280,000 and rents it out for £645 a week to “discerning” tourists.

“This flat is very luxurious,” she says. “I insist on no children, no pets. This is a classy place for people to read and relax in. I arrange champagne on arrival, there are raw silk curtains, fabulous soft furnishings, huge beds, that sort of thing. And there has been no shortage of classy people coming to stay.”

In her first year, she let it out for 13 weeks – not a great return, but then, it is not a purely commercial venture: like others who have invested in buy-to-lets in holiday spots, she intends eventually to spend part of her time living there.

Gorst warns, though, that it could be difficult to get a mortgage, because lenders are anxious that the rental yields might not stack up: “Plus, the summer weather in Britain is unpredictable, and rocketing interest rates make mortgages very scary at the moment.”

This, dear reader, is the quandary. The rental prices are tempting, and there is clearly a solid market for domestic holiday lettings. But, although the weather has perked up a bit in the past few days, what if this summer’s torrents of water are a sign of things to come? Will your potential tenants all rush back to the Costa del Sol, leaving you sitting there counting the rain drops and watching rising interest rates cut into your profits?

buytolet@sunday-times.co.uk

Times recommends

• Second homes: credit crunch casualty or money-spinner?
• How I built my own sliding house
• Top 10 incentives for house buyers