6 years
Hi Jack,
I leased an expensive building for my first hostel in Medellin. Keep in mind a few things, 1st -all revonations you do are going straight to the landowner. Meaning, all improvements are going to be the owners. I spent entirely too much making the building look nice in the beginning, building walls, extra floors, terrace, you name it.
Secondly, you'll need a long-term lease or the owner can just raise the rent high seeing you have a successful business. You'll want to look at this in detail, I don't know what type of rent controls they have in Scottland but have a long-term plan. Just a 5% per year increase in rent every year can really kill a hostel as you'll be unable to add more rooms or raise the room prices enough to cover it more than likely. A long-term lease also has drawbacks as you'll be on the hook for the all 5 years even if the business fails.
This brings me to my last point - write a 5-year business plan and see how profitable it can be first. You'd hate to sink a bunch of money into a building you don't own just to lose it all in 2 years.
I sold my hostel when I realized that the rent would be too high to make a decent profit and bought land in a less expensive part of Colombia. Landowners in Colombia were also a nightmare to deal with. I prefer to own it outright.
I hope this helps!
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