Renting a house in Tela has little to do with renting a condo in a resort area. Here your guests are mostly Honduran families, often in big groups, and they come all year, with a rush at Easter week, in October and over Christmas. If you think of buying in Tela and renting the house when you are not using it, this is what that looks like in practice.
A town that never really empties
In Tela, Honduran tourism never stops. There is a low season, when the weather turns and fewer people come, but even then the town keeps moving: families on weekends, people from San Pedro Sula escaping the heat of the valley, visitors on their way to Roatán or La Ceiba who stop for Lancetilla, Punta Sal or a plate of fish in a Garífuna village. A house bought to rent can work all year.
That is why hotels and owners who rent their homes here usually work with two or three rates, depending on the season. Easter week, the Morazán holiday week in October and the Christmas and New Year season are the peaks, and prices jump: in Semana Santa a room can cost double, sometimes more. Frankly, it can get a little crazy. But that is supply and demand, and an investor can take advantage of it.
The catch is that those few peak days never make up for the many weekends and weekdays with few guests. Tela has an impressive number of rooms and beds, and the owners who do best are the ones who look for guests all year, with attractive rates outside the holidays. Visitors win too: whoever can take a couple of days off in another season gets better service, less confusion, and spends almost half.
Who your guests will be
- Extended families: grandparents, kids, cousins. They want beds for many, a big kitchen and a table where everyone fits.
- Hondurans living abroad who come home for the holidays and want the whole family under one roof.
- A few foreign travelers, usually for short stays, who look for air conditioning and a quiet street.
The house that works
Walking distance to the beach matters more than anything else. After that: a fenced yard or a garage for the cars, a water tank so nobody runs out during the holidays, air conditioning at least in the bedrooms, and furniture that can take sand and humidity. Simple and solid beats fancy.
What goes out every year
- A person in Tela you trust: to hand over the keys, check the house after each group and call the plumber when needed.
- Cleaning between groups, and maintenance: salt air eats air conditioners, door hinges and wood.
- The electricity bill, which jumps when guests run the air conditioning all day.
- Commissions, if you list the house on Airbnb, Booking or similar sites.
- Taxes: in Honduras short-term rentals pay sales tax and tourism tax, and the profit pays income tax. An accountant can tell you how this works in your case.
- Money set aside for repairs: the heaviest rains usually come from October to December, and the hurricane season runs from June to November.
Doing the numbers without fooling yourself
Do them with two or three rates, like the hotels. Count the peak nights you can fill at the high rate, then the weekends and weekdays of the rest of the year at a rate that really attracts guests, based on what similar houses in Tela charge. Take away the costs above and the days your own family will use the house. If the result still makes sense next to the price of the property and the purchase costs (see Buying property in Tela), it is a good sign. If someone promises you a fixed income, ask how they calculated it.
Paperwork
- Register the rental with the tourism authorities and the municipality when required.
- Before you buy, have your own lawyer check the title, especially near the bay, on Garífuna community land or next to a protected area: see our clean title check.
Our take
In Tela a rental house works best as a family house that pays part of its own costs, not as a business plan. Buy one you would happily spend Easter week in. To get to know the town first, read Living in Tela and our Tela real estate FAQ, or browse the Tela real estate listings.
2026. This page is general information. For taxes and numbers, talk to an accountant in Honduras.