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Are holiday lodges ever a good investment?

No, on any normal meaning of the word, and Haven says so on the page where it sells you the finance. Here is the arithmetic on capital, letting income and tax, with every figure taken from a published page.

Published 2026-08-03 · updated 2026-08-03 · 9 min read · all figures sourced below

No. A holiday lodge is not an investment in the sense that word usually carries, and the companies selling them say so in writing. Haven's own caravan finance page states that "buying a static caravan is a lifestyle choice, not a financial investment".

That is the short answer. The longer one is worth reading, because "investment" gets used loosely in park sales offices, and there are three separate claims hiding inside it. The unit goes up in value. The letting income pays for it. Owning is cheaper than paying for the same holidays. Each one can be tested against figures the operators publish themselves, so this article tests all three.

Do holiday lodges go up in value?

No. Operators' own listings run the other way, and none of them publishes a resale series that would let you check the rate.

On 3 August 2026 Haven advertised used static caravans from £14,995, a figure its page dates as at 24 June 2026, against new static caravans from £29,995 dated the same day. Two individual used units appeared on that page: a 2018 ABI Summerhouse from £19,995, and a 2022 Victory Riverwood lodge from £46,995. Park Holidays advertises new luxury lodges from £64,995 with a 10% deposit.

Those are different models on different parks, so they are not a like-for-like series, and nobody should treat them as one. What matters more is the gap in the data. No operator or manufacturer publishes what a specific used unit sold for when it was new. If these things held their value, that series would be a sales tool and it would be on every ownership page. Our article on how much a static caravan loses in value each year sets out what Haven's new and used prices show when you compare them on the same day.

Then there is the finance. Haven's representative example is a three bedroom ABI New Horizon at a cash price of £29,995, less an £8,998.50 deposit, giving a loan of £20,996.50 repaid over 120 monthly payments of £268.27 at 5.33% fixed, 9.6% APR representative. Haven publishes a total charge for credit of £11,196.32 and a total amount payable of £41,190.90. Those two figures do not quite reconcile. The deposit plus 120 payments comes to £41,190.90, while the deposit plus the loan plus the credit charge comes to £41,191.32, a 42p difference that is presumably rounding on the final payment. Either way you pay about £41,191 for a unit priced at £29,995, and Haven's used page shows what units of that kind fetch a few years later.

Can letting income turn a lodge into an investment?

Not on the figures the parks publish, because the published figures are ceilings rather than yields.

Park Holidays advertises subletting income of up to £18,995 in 2026 for a luxury lodge and up to £16,415 for a caravan. The conditions sit on the same page. You must release a minimum of six weeks during the letting season, the holiday home must generally be under five years old, and the page says the income is not guaranteed: if nobody stays there, you do not get paid. The same operator's running costs page puts the pitch fee for a luxury lodge from £4,745 a year, a standard holiday home from £3,675 and a large holiday home from £5,345.

Compare that with Haven's published annual ownership figures. Haven quotes site fees from £4,395 a year at selected parks, a range of £4,770 to £10,000 or more across its estate, and a worked example at Golden Sands in January 2026 of £426 average gas and electricity, £324 average rates including water, and insurance of £217 to £495. Haven's own total for annual ownership is £5,737 to £10,000 or more.

Take Haven's lowest published total of £5,737 and assume a 5% increase each year, which is arithmetic of ours rather than a Haven forecast. Ten years of ownership costs about £72,159. That is before the purchase price, before finance interest and before the loss on resale. A letting ceiling of £18,995, achieved only by giving up six in-season weeks in a unit under five years old, does not clear that on its own, and the ceiling is not a forecast. What park letting schemes actually pay is covered in renting out your holiday lodge, and you can put your own numbers through the ownership cost calculator.

What tax relief can you claim on a holiday lodge?

Considerably less than you could two years ago. The Furnished Holiday Lettings regime was abolished for income tax and capital gains tax on or after 6 April 2025, and for corporation tax from 1 April 2025.

HMRC's policy paper sets out four changes. Loan interest is restricted to the basic rate for income tax under the finance cost restriction rules. Capital allowances are removed for new expenditure, with replacement of domestic items relief applying instead. Reliefs from taxes on chargeable gains for trading business assets are withdrawn, including roll-over relief and business asset disposal relief. The income no longer counts within relevant UK earnings when calculating maximum pension relief. Existing businesses may continue writing down allowances on a pool built up before the operative date, but new expenditure falls under the property business rules.

Any letting projection, spreadsheet or sales presentation that still assumes FHL treatment is describing a regime that no longer exists.

The capital gains position is worse than neutral. Section 45(1) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992 provides that no chargeable gain accrues on the disposal of tangible movable property that is a wasting asset. Section 16(2) of the same Act makes the rule symmetrical: the provisions distinguishing chargeable gains from non-chargeable gains apply also to distinguish allowable losses from non-allowable ones. An exempt gain therefore means a loss you cannot use. Sections 45(2) and 45(3) qualify this where the asset has been used for a trade and capital allowances were or could have been claimed, so anyone letting commercially should take advice on their own position.

Whether the accommodation counts as non-domestic property at all depends on where it is, and England and Wales set different tests. Section 66 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 requires, for England, that the property is intended to be available for commercial letting as self-catering accommodation for short periods totalling 140 days or more, and that it was actually let for at least 70 days. For Wales, subsection (2BB) sets 252 days available and 182 days actually let, with averaging provisions added on 1 April 2026. Those two sets of numbers are not interchangeable, and getting them the wrong way round is a common error. The Welsh rules are covered in buying a holiday lodge in Wales.

Does the money do better somewhere else?

Almost certainly, though the honest comparison is duller than a sales brochure. The Bank of England held Bank Rate at 3.75% on 30 July 2026. Bank Rate is not a savings rate you can walk into a branch and get, so treat it as a reference point rather than a quote.

Even so, the shape of the comparison is clear. The £41,190.90 that Haven's representative example has you pay over ten years buys a unit whose used equivalents on the same website sit at a fraction of the new price. Money left in a deposit account earns something and stays yours. There is no version of this arithmetic in which the lodge wins on money alone. What it buys is use, and use is the only thing on the ownership side of the ledger that has real value. The true cost of owning a holiday lodge sets out the full annual picture.

What happens if a salesperson calls it an investment?

It may be a misleading action, and since 6 April 2025 that has been governed by a new statute.

Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 came into force on 6 April 2025 under the Commencement No. 2 Regulations 2025, with sections 232, 234 and 235 on consumers' right of redress excepted. Section 226 defines a misleading action to include the provision of false or misleading information relating to a product, a trader or any other matter relevant to a transactional decision, and an overall presentation likely to deceive the average consumer. The section states that information presented in a misleading way counts even where it is factually accurate.

Schedule 20 of the same Act lists practices that are unfair in all circumstances. It contains no entry aimed specifically at investment claims, so a statement about future value is tested under the general misleading action rule rather than a blanket ban. Schedule 20 does catch a tactic familiar from park sales offices: paragraph 7 bans "falsely stating that a product will only be available for a limited time, or that it will only be available on particular terms for a limited time, in order to elicit an immediate decision and deprive consumers of sufficient opportunity or time to make an informed choice".

The practical use of this is narrow but real. If a park's written material or a salesperson's spoken pitch tells you the unit is an investment, or that its value will hold, write down what was said and ask them to put it in the paperwork. Most will not.

What about selling it later?

You get less than the sale price. The National Association of Caravan Owners says most parks charge commission when a caravan or lodge is sold on pitch, commonly around 15%, and that the exact figure must be clearly stated in your agreement. NACO also notes that some parks require their own sales team to handle the transaction, and lists the conditions parks typically impose on removal: written notice, approved contractors for disconnection and transport, safe removal of services and repair of pitch damage. It gives no figures for those charges.

Apply 15% to the Haven listings above and a used lodge advertised at £46,995 returns £39,946 to the seller before any disconnection cost.

When does buying a lodge make sense?

When you have priced the holidays honestly and the answer still suits you. Take Haven's £5,737 lower bound for annual ownership, add the purchase price spread over the years you expect to keep it, add finance interest if you are borrowing, subtract a realistic resale figure taken from used listings rather than from the sales office, and divide by the nights you will genuinely spend there. If that number is close to what you currently pay for holidays, and you want the same place every time, the decision is defensible.

Call it what it is at that point. It is a way of buying holidays, priced in advance, with the depreciation as the fee. Two questions to put in writing before you sign: what commission the park charges on an on-pitch resale, and what comparable units of the same age have sold for on that park in the last twelve months.

Sources