In our last blog, we looked at how much it costs to rent a short-term property versus renting one long-term. The surprising finding was that once you take all the moving costs, the expense of furnishing an apartment and the bills into account, it's cheaper to rent on a short-term contract than a long-term one (not to mention all the time you save not having to deal with energy suppliers, researching everything you need to buy, staying in for things to be delivered, waiting around for Virgin to set up your broadband...).

We compared two people sharing a two-bed serviced flat in West Bridgford for 6 months and our comparison showed that the short-term let worked out at £700 cheaper over that time. So we thought it would be interesting to do the same calculation but this time we'd compare staying with us in a short-term rental with staying in a hotel.

Who remembers Lost in Translation? It was a look at how impersonal and dehumanising staying in a hotel can be, something we talked about a while ago in this blog – Business Travel: From Dehumanising to Enriching – Are You Up For the Challenge? We don't mean to put a negative spin on hotels but having an apartment all to yourself or you and your partner is so much nicer, isn't it?

But is it more expensive?

A quick search on trivago to stay in a hotel in Nottingham tonight came back with options ranging from £29 to £153. PWC's forecast for hotel prices outside London in 2017 predicted an average of £70/night. Nottingham's prices are a bit above average, the average in Nottingham was £64/night in 2014, and £71/night in 2015 (according to this report by The Daily Mail). So, why don't we work with a rate of £75 per night for a double room.

OK. So, let's work out how much that is for a month:
£75 x 30 nights = £2250

And for six months:
£2250 x 6 months = £13,500

How does that compare with renting a short-term apartment? Our special rate for lets of 3 months or more is £2000, which is:
£2000 x 6 months = £12,000

That's already a saving of £1500. But... with a rental you get two bedrooms. If you wanted to rent two rooms in a hotel your costs immediately doubles to £27,000. Wow.

The other benefits of short-term serviced apartment

Not only do you get two bedrooms, you get a living room, a fully-equipped kitchen, and a parking space as well. So you can cook your own meals, the kettle is a sensible size, you've got a Nespresso machine (not Nescafe instant). You can eat what you want when you want it. You can have midnight feasts, early morning smoothies, late morning brunches. Plus preparing your own food is so much cheaper and healthier than eating out all the time. And when you do want to go out you've got the many many gorgeous restaurants West Bridgford has to offer on your doorstep.

You also have space for your family to visit or stay, friends can come round too and you have enough chairs for everyone to sit down! You don't have to work at a tiny counter next to the TV amongst your possessions because that's the only flat surface, you can spread out across an entire table!

You've got free parking right outside – most hotels charge for parking these days, so that can add £5/day (or 
£900 for six months) to your hotel bill. And you can come and go as you please. The cleaners come at a time to suit you, and you don't have to fit in with reception times or meal times.

And that difference is the extra effort we put in.

I live in West Bridgford and I personally  make sure that every property is perfect and ready before our guests arrive. Last year, I talked about my aim of providing a service that's the complete opposite of the dehumaising experience many people experience when they relocate or travel for business. We want our visitors to feel part of the community they're staying in the moment they arrive, so we make sure they do by finding out exactly what they need during their stay (whether that's a gym, a cot, information about local schools or any other help with relocating). ​

We've had a fantastic year and we hope you have too. We intend to keep growing on our success and carry on providing the best short-term accommodation around! If you'd like to check out our luxury apartments and experience our customer service for yourself please get in touch. And don't forget to come back soon and read about our Christmas Party!

Half of the country may be on holiday but for lots of us it's business as usual and we're having one of our busiest times ever with all of our apartments full. I'm not complaining though, I love being busy so it's just the way I like it. And we're not the only ones working through August, there's been lots happening on the thriving business, university and social scenes in Nottingham. Here's a round-up of some of the latest news...

Iberico World Tapas is opening a second venue
Possibly the most exciting news for us foodies is that Iberico – which is one of my favourite places to eat out in Nottingham and does AMAZING tapas – is opening its second venture, Bar Iberico, on August 22nd. It's going to be on Carlton Street in the trendy going-out area of Hockley, and will have the same gorgeous authentic tapas with a slightly more laid-back atmosphere. And I bagged myself an invite to the opening night in this blog so see you there!

Nottingham Trent University students are a happy lot
The recent National Student Survey found out that students at NTU are the 6th most satisfied students in the UK. And why wouldn't they be?! Nottingham is an awesome place to study, I moved here to study at Nottingham Uni a few (ahem) years ago. According to the survey, 93% of students would recommend NTU to others, which is pretty fantastic, well done NTU!

New office space + new jobs at NG2
Nottingham City Council has approved plans for more than 210,000 sq. feet of new office space at the NG2 business park on Queens Drive (about a mile from West Bridgford). Miller Birch will be developing the site, where Experian, Speedo and the Bank of England already have offices, creating about 1000 new jobs. If you're one of the people relocating to a business in the new NG2 offices you know where we are...

Gusto to open a new restaurant in West Bridgford
I did say I was foodie didn't I?! Well, we've been wondering what would happen to the site where the Monkey Tree used to be on Bridgford Road in West Bridgford for a while... and it's going to the East Midlands' first Gusto restaurant. According to the website, Gusto offers classic and contemporary Italian fare and aims to make the everyday "exquisite". Sounds good to me, I can't wait to visit, as well as being a very welcome addition to the fantastic selection of cafes and restaurants we have in West Bridgford it's going to mean a £1 million injection into the local economy and will create 50 new jobs.

Hub for technology businesses is opening in September
More good news for businesses... we've heard on the grapevine that Accelerate Places Nottingham is opening a new 22,000 sq. feet office space for growing technology businesses. The hub – on Wollaton Street, right in the middle of town – will provide office and meeting space for tech businesses and software developers. Accelerate Places see Nottingham as the perfect place to set up a new hub and create a technology community because we already have some very successful large businesses here, lots of new companies with great ideas, the Creative Quarter, two universities and loads and loads of talent. They want to put Nottingham on the map so that we compete with Manchester and London as tech centres.

So, even during one of the quietest months of the year there's still heaps going on, Nottingham really is thriving. If we've missed any great local business news feel free to share it below. And if you're relocating to Nottingham soon get in touch to book a serviced apartment or find out how we can help.

Last year, more than half of our guests came from overseas, most of them were relocating to Nottingham to start a new position and stayed with us for anything from a month up to a year. People have come to stay from all over the world, including the EU, Australia, the U.S. and pretty much anywhere else you can think of. The only continents we haven't had guests from yet are the Arctic and Antarctica, so if you're reading this in one of the poles and thinking of relocating to warmer climes drop us a line!

We're really proud of our international connections and our ethos is to make everyone who stays with us feel welcome so we try to cater for everyone's needs and expectations.

Catering for different tastes
Very quickly we realised that GCSE French wasn't going to cut it in the language stakes so we found software that sends out booking confirmations and invoices to clients in their mother tongue to take care of the language barrier. Sometimes global guests arrive with different expectations and social norms, so we've equipped our luxury apartments accordingly to make sure we take cultural differences into account, which has been great fun.

For example, our Italian guests love to have a large pasta pan to use, and North Americans expect good quality coffee, none of this instant stuff. So all of our apartments are kitted out with a range of pans and they all come with a Nespresso machine (and we've not had a single complaint about the coffee!). 

In most places around the world these days, people think that white linen and towels are the most hygienic so last year we changed every single sheet, pillowcase, duvet cover and towel in our apartments to a crisp, brand new white one.

We're definitely an international company but we also like to provide a “flavour of Britishness” for our visitors. Once our guests are here we'll show them around gorgeous West Bridgford and recommend quality local restaurants and shops (of which there are many!) to go to, other local businesses that are in-keeping with our brand of localness, and provide the same quality and high level of service we do. We're also really happy to introduce guests to other local folks we think they'll get on with and help them settle into the area, so before they know it they'll feel like a local.

We're so proud of our international community of guests and love that they want to move to Nottingham and come and stay in our wonderful town so we recently shared our story and entered the East Midlands Chamber Excellence in International Trade Award, we'll let you know how we get on...

In the meantime, don't forget to get in touch to ask us anything about our gorgeous apartments or to check that we've got what you need for a perfect stay (especially if you're moving here from the Arctic or Antarctica!).