Airbnb vs Long-Term Renting in Milton Keynes: The Net Income Comparison

Written by Miles Udemezue, Commercial Director, Lettd.

A one bedroom property in Milton Keynes let on a standard tenancy achieves an average of £974 a month, according to ONS figures for June 2026. Across three one bedroom flats in MK6 that Lettd manages, the same size of property averaged £3,089 in gross short let revenue in July 2026.

That gap is real but it is also misleading, because gross revenue is not income. Short lets carry platform fees, management fees, cleaning, consumables and higher maintenance. Long term tenancies carry almost none of those. The comparison only means something after every deduction, and July is the strongest month of the year in Milton Keynes.

Here is the full comparison, the maths on a real property, and the honest limits of what a single month can tell you.

The long-term rent baseline

ONS publishes average private rents by local authority and by bedroom count. For Milton Keynes, as of June 2026:

Average rents in Milton Keynes rose 3.6% in the year to June 2026, from £1,293. By property type, flats and maisonettes averaged £1,135 and detached houses £1,950.

Source: ONS Price Index of Private Rents, June 2026.

Use the bedroom figures, not the overall average. Comparing a one bedroom short let against the £1,340 all property average is the single most common way these comparisons get rigged, usually accidentally.

What a long-term tenancy actually nets

Gross rent is not net income here either.

• Letting agent fees. Full management typically runs 10% to 15% of rent. Self-managing avoids this but costs time.

• Void periods. Even a well let property loses a few weeks between tenancies. A one month void a year is roughly 8% of annual rent.

• Maintenance and repairs. Lower than a short let, but not nil.

• Safety compliance. Gas safety, EICR, EPC.

A one bedroom flat at £974 gross, fully managed, with a modest void allowance, realistically nets somewhere around £800 to £850 a month. That is the number a short let has to beat.

What a short let nets

Here is the same calculation on real figures. Three one bedroom flats in MK6, July 2026, averaging £3,089 gross across the three.

Note on cleaning. £35 per turnover on a one bedroom flat, including linen washing, with eight to ten turnovers in a busy month. That figure reflects directly engaged cleaners. Agency cleaning costs materially more for the same work, and on a property turning over nine or ten times a month the difference runs to hundreds of pounds a year per unit. This is the number you should challenge hardest in any projection you are shown, including this one.

Note also that the gross revenue figure includes cleaning fees charged to guests, so the deduction above is the actual cost of the clean rather than a double count.

One detail worth pulling out of that table. Eight to ten turnovers across a near fully occupied month implies an average stay of three nights or more. Length of stay is doing quiet work in the cleaning line. The same property averaging one and two night bookings would run fifteen or more turnovers on identical occupancy, adding roughly £200 a month in cleaning for no additional revenue. Occupancy would look the same on the dashboard. The net would not.

On these numbers, the short let nets roughly £2,017 against roughly £820 on a tenancy. Around two and a half times.

Why that number is not always the answer

July is the best month. Milton Keynes short let demand is steadier than a seaside town, because it is driven by employment rather than holidays, but it is not flat. July is the peak. A winter month will be materially lower on both rate and occupancy. Multiplying £2,017 by twelve gives a number that will not happen.

What the July figures do show reliably is that the gap is large enough that it survives a lot of seasonal variation. Winter months on those same properties average £1,200 (net to owner) - so the annual position still comfortably beats the tenancy. That is the honest version of the claim.

Does management pay for itself?

The same three flats were self-managed by their owner in July 2025 and managed by Lettd in July 2026.

Same properties, same month, twelve months apart, different management. £1,743.91 more across the three units in one month.

Part of that increase is the Milton Keynes market moving over twelve months rather than anything I did. I cannot separate the two honestly with three properties, so I am not going to claim the full 23% as a management effect. The real contribution is lower.

The mechanism was mostly pricing. On a separate four bedroom MK6 property under Lettd management throughout, average nightly rate moved from £134.16 in May to £239.07 in July while occupancy deliberately came down from 97% to 81%. Giving up occupancy to capture rate produced more revenue than running full at May pricing would have. Occupancy on its own is a vanity metric.

The tax position changed in 2025

The Furnished Holiday Let regime was abolished from 6 April 2025. Short let income is now taxed broadly as standard property income.

This matters because it removed several advantages short lets previously held: full mortgage interest relief, capital allowances on new expenditure, and access to certain Capital Gains Tax reliefs on disposal. Any comparison you were shown before April 2025 is out of date and will overstate the short let side.

It does not reverse the outcome above, but it narrows it, and if you are geared it narrows it more. Speak to an accountant about your own position rather than relying on a blog, including this one.

The Renters' Rights Act changed the other side

The main provisions of the Renters' Rights Act took effect for the private rented sector on 1 May 2026. It is a significant change to how assured tenancies work, and it is part of why more landlords are looking at short lets this year than last.

I would be cautious about switching primarily for that reason. Short letting is a different business, not a way around tenancy regulation, and it brings its own regulatory load including a written fire risk assessment, short let insurance, and a national registration scheme that has been confirmed for England and was pending launch at the time of writing.

What the comparison misses

Money is not the whole decision.

Effort. A tenancy is a handful of interactions a year. A short let is dozens of guest messages a week, turnovers on a schedule, and problems that cannot wait until Monday. Self-managing is a part time job. That is precisely why management exists, and why the fee has to be judged against the time as well as the revenue.

Income volatility. Rent arrives monthly and predictably. Short let income moves with season, events and the economy. Some owners strongly prefer the certainty, and that preference is legitimate rather than irrational.

Setup cost. Furnishing to hospitality standard runs £4,000 to £8,000 for an empty property, plus photography and compliance. A tenancy can start with an empty flat.

Permissions. A standard buy to let mortgage usually does not permit short letting, standard landlord insurance usually excludes it, and many leases prohibit it. Any of the three can end the discussion before the numbers matter.

Wear. Higher turnover means faster wear on furnishings and more frequent redecoration.

How to run the comparison on your own property

Do not accept anyone's projection, including mine. Build it yourself.

1. Find your long term baseline. Use the ONS figure for your bedroom count as a sense check, then look at comparable listings for your actual property.

2. Deduct from that baseline: letting agent fee if managed, a void allowance of at least one month a year, maintenance.

3. Estimate short let gross conservatively. Use realistic occupancy for your property type and a nightly rate you can evidence, not a peak month.

4. Deduct in full: platform fee at roughly 15% of gross, management commission, fixed management fee, actual cleaning cost per turnover multiplied by realistic turnovers, consumables, higher maintenance.

5. Compare the two net figures monthly, not annually. Annual totals obscure seasonality and make everything look larger than it is.

6. Then add the non financial factors and decide whether the gap is worth them.

If the short let net does not clearly beat the tenancy net after all of that, the answer for your property is a long term tenancy. That is a genuine outcome and it applies to plenty of properties. Rural and village stock in particular often fails this test in Milton Keynes, because the contractor and corporate demand that makes the model work is concentrated around the city's employment sites.

Frequently asked questions

Is Airbnb more profitable than renting in Milton Keynes? On the properties Lettd manages, yes, by a wide margin in peak season. Three one bedroom flats in MK6 averaged £3,089 gross in July 2026, against an ONS average of £974 a month for a one bedroom long term tenancy in Milton Keynes. After platform fees, management fees, cleaning and consumables, the short let netted around £2,017 against roughly £820 on a tenancy, about two and a half times. July is the strongest month of the year, so annual performance will be lower.

What is the average rent in Milton Keynes? The average monthly private rent in Milton Keynes was £1,340 in June 2026, up 3.6% from £1,293 a year earlier, according to ONS. By bedroom count: £974 for one bedroom, £1,213 for two, £1,447 for three and £2,085 for four or more.

What are the costs of running an Airbnb compared with a long-term rental? Short lets carry platform fees of roughly 15% of gross, management commission, cleaning per turnover, consumables, higher maintenance and specialist insurance. Long term tenancies carry letting agent fees of 10% to 15% if managed, void periods, and lower maintenance. The platform fee is usually the single largest deduction, but cleaning is the one most often underestimated, because it scales with the number of bookings rather than with revenue.

Did the tax rules for holiday lets change? Yes. The Furnished Holiday Let regime was abolished from 6 April 2025, removing full mortgage interest relief, capital allowances on new expenditure and certain Capital Gains Tax reliefs. Short let income is now taxed broadly as standard property income. Any comparison prepared before April 2025 overstates the short let position.

Does the Renters' Rights Act apply to Airbnb? The Renters' Rights Act governs assured tenancies in the private rented sector, with main provisions in force from 1 May 2026. Genuine short term holiday and business lets sit outside the assured tenancy regime, but short letting carries its own regulatory requirements including fire safety duties and a national registration scheme confirmed for England. Take advice on your specific arrangement.

How much occupancy does an Airbnb need to beat long-term rent? It depends on nightly rate and cost base rather than occupancy alone. On the fee structure and cleaning costs above, a one bedroom Milton Keynes property needs gross short let revenue of roughly 1.6 times the long term rent to break even against a fully managed tenancy. Higher management fees, VAT, or agency cleaning push that closer to two times. Work it from your own nightly rate and actual cleaning cost rather than from an occupancy percentage.

Rent figures are from the ONS Price Index of Private Rents for Milton Keynes, June 2026. Short let figures are from Lettd's own managed portfolio and reflect a small number of properties over a limited period, including a single peak month. They are not representative of the Milton Keynes short let market as a whole. This article is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice.