If you own a property in Brighton or Hove, you have probably asked this question in the last few months. And you are probably asking it now for a reason.
On 1 May 2026, Section 21 was abolished. Landlords can no longer end a tenancy without giving a specific legal ground. Fixed terms are gone — every assured tenancy is now periodic. If you want to sell, you need four months’ notice, you cannot serve it within the first twelve months, and you cannot re-let the property for a year afterwards. Get the process wrong and the civil penalty runs to £40,000.
That has made a lot of Brighton landlords look at short lets differently.
So let’s do the comparison properly, with actual numbers rather than the usual claim that short lets earn “two or three times more”.
What a long let earns in Brighton & Hove
Average monthly rents across the city, based on Valuation Office Agency survey data:
| Property | Average monthly rent |
|---|---|
| One bedroom | £1,051 |
| Two bedroom | £1,430 |
| Three bedroom | £1,890 |
| All properties | £1,426 |
Rents in the city grew 11.3% year on year in that survey period, which is well above the national average — Brighton’s supply problem is real, and it works in a landlord’s favour.
Take a one-bedroom flat at £1,051 a month. Fully let, that is £12,612 a year gross. Your costs are relatively light: agent fees, insurance, maintenance, safety certificates, and the occasional void between tenancies. The tenant pays the bills.
What a short let earns in Brighton & Hove
Now the other side. Across roughly 700 active short-let listings in Brighton & Hove over the twelve months to July 2026:
- £165Average nightly rate
- 35.9%Average occupancy
- £13,700Average annual revenue
That £165 a night looks fantastic next to £1,051 a month. It is the number people quote at dinner parties.
But 35.9% occupancy is the number that matters. It means the average Brighton listing sits empty roughly two nights in three.
The comparison most people get wrong
Put them side by side:
That is a difference of about £1,100 a year — before costs.
And short-let costs are in a different league. You are paying for changeover cleaning after every stay, all the bills, wifi, furnishing and replacing contents, listing platform commission at 15–20%, higher insurance, and management if you are not doing it yourself. Run those through and the average Brighton short let can quite easily underperform a long let.
This is the part the “short lets earn triple” crowd leave out.
So why does anyone short let?
Because averages hide the spread.
That 35.9% figure includes spare rooms, part-time listings, badly photographed flats, properties priced wrong for the season, and owners who list in June and forget about it in November. A well-located, well-presented, actively managed Brighton property does not run at 36% occupancy — and the gap between a managed property and an average one is where the entire return lives.
The honest way to frame it: short letting is not a higher-yield asset class. It is a higher-effort one, and the effort is what generates the return.
Done passively, it usually loses to a long let. Done properly, it beats one comfortably.
There are also real advantages beyond the money:
- Access to your own property. Blocking out dates for family, your own use, or renovation.
- No security of tenure. Given what changed on 1 May, this is now a significant consideration for anyone who might want to sell within the next few years.
- Rates flex with demand. Brighton in Pride week, marathon weekend or festival season is a different market to Brighton in February — and short lets capture that. Long lets cannot.
- Property condition. Someone inspects and cleans it every few days.
And the arguments against
- Seasonality. Brighton is a coastal city. Your January is not your July, and you need to price and budget for that.
- Effort. Enquiries, check-ins, cleaning schedules, restocking, the 11pm message about the boiler.
- Regulation is coming. England’s short-term let registration scheme has been government policy for some time and is expected to require a registration number displayed on every listing, backed by safety evidence — gas safety, an EICR and a fire risk assessment. A new C5 planning use class for short-term lets has also been progressed, which would let councils require planning permission to convert a home into a short let. Neither is fully in force yet, and the timetable has slipped, but the direction is settled. If you are considering short letting, plan on the assumption it arrives.
- Not every property suits it. Location does most of the work. Central, near the seafront, near the stations, walkable to the Lanes — those perform. A flat in a quiet residential street twenty minutes from anything will not, whatever the photos look like.
Which should you choose?
There is no universal answer, but the decision usually comes down to three things:
Where is it?
Central Brighton and Hove, near the seafront or the stations, works for short lets. Further out, a long let will almost always win.
Do you need flexibility?
If there is any chance you will want to sell, move in, or renovate within a few years, short letting keeps that option open in a way that a periodic tenancy under the new rules does not.
Who is doing the work?
This is the one that actually decides it. If nobody is actively managing pricing, listings, reviews and turnarounds, a short let will drift toward that 36% average — and at that level, the long let was the better deal.
The middle option people forget
You do not have to choose permanently. A number of our Brighton landlords run their property as a short let through the busy months and switch to a medium-term let — a contractor, a relocating professional, someone renovating their own home — over winter. It smooths the seasonality without giving up the flexibility.
That only works if someone is managing the switch. But it is often the answer that beats both of the options people think they are choosing between.
Want the actual numbers for your property?
Averages are a starting point, not an answer. What your flat earns depends on its street, its size, its condition and how it is run.
We manage both short lets and long lets across Brighton and Hove, so we have no reason to push you toward one or the other — we would rather tell you which suits your property.
Request a free rental valuationYou can also read more about our property management and lettings service for landlords, or see the short-let properties we currently manage.
Figures in this article: long-let rents from Valuation Office Agency survey data for Brighton and Hove; short-let performance data covering approximately 700 active listings in Brighton and Hove for the twelve months to July 2026, converted from US dollars. Market averages are indicative and individual properties vary considerably. This article is general information, not legal or financial advice — please take professional advice on your own circumstances.