Luxury Property: The Scottish Castle or the Manor – Should I buy or should I rent?

Not a question most people have to answer granted however the question does get asked. We have spoken to several people in the past who are deciding to buy or rent a luxury property like a Castle in Scotland. So for those people who need help with this I thought I would try to help you out.

To conduct this scientific (ahem) experiment I have chosen two properties to compare, this nice little Manor House in the highlands of Scotland which is for sale:

And this beautiful castle on Loch Ness which is currently for rent:

I will ignore the most obvious bits about both of these properties, they are both stunning! They both have second to none facilities and are completely 5 star luxury to the end. They are both next to water and are both big enough to swing more than one cat.

They both have access to popular leisure facilities like fishing, shooting and the like, after all you are in Scotland! They both have so much land you could host a rock concert and not hear the bands from the house!

The scenery for both properties are truly amazing with crisp Scottish air.

They both have other properties on the land included, after all you never know when you need more bedrooms.

So that’s the positives,  hear comes the negatives.

Lets start off with the price for buying this luxury manor, it will set you back £10,000,000. We expect you would have to pay between £350,000 – £500,000 a year to staff it and maintain the properties to a very high standard that it is currently in. Unless you are going to live there all the time, which is unlikely as Scotland is a stunning place but it is not very convenient to commute to a big city like London each day. So you would use for weekends or the odd week in the year. When speaking to owners of properties of this size it is staggering how little they use them, at an average they would stay there approx 30 days per year.

Here comes the maths section of this blog, I’m sure you can all see it coming…

Putting the initial cost of purchase aside at the moment, it would cost you up to £16,666 per night you stay in the property.

We won’t calculate the cost of the purchase as it could be an investment, negative or positively as the price of the property will change.

Because you have this stunning property to use you will feel that any available time off you would have to spend there, kind of stopping you seeing the world and other places.

So now down to the negatives for renting Aldourie Castle.

….hmm

You can’t sell it.

You can’t knock it down and build a theme park.

I think that’s about it, it’s less expensive, no stress from running a property of this size, you can almost go when you like, you are not tied down to one property and you are looked after by people who whilst you are staying at Aldourie Castle you own Aldourie Castle.

More information about buying this great manor can be found here and if you would like to know more about renting Aldourie Castle click here.