HOW TEENS WRECKED MY HOLIDAY HOME DREAM
ONCE upon a time, not so long ago, I woke up with a holiday house hangover.
No, it wasn’t rowdy neighbours or a party pad down the street, it was our own home which we let out as a short-term rental on Stayz (now HomeAway). My castle had been crashed.
It was never my intention to be the Candym-Ann of Broadbeach Waters. We weren’t looking to make a fortune, but rather not to lose one. Our family needed to move but thanks to the GFC property implosion, we simply could not shift our home – not without losing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In a bid to literally buy time, we started to investigate this new holiday home trend.
And boy oh boy, did the numbers stack up.
As responsible citizens, residents and neighbours, we employed an amazing manager to look after our check-ins and outs, cleaning and reservation issues.
He was a master of marketing and it wasn’t long before we were solidly booked and deposits were flowing into our bank account.
In terms of a passive income, it was amazing. In terms of active stress, it was off the charts.
We looked after maintenance and, Murphy’s Law, everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Fridges exploded, toilets blocked, aircon failed.
Added to this, at the time Mermaid Beach MP Ray Stevens was (successfully) advocating for new laws governing the operation of “party houses’’, regardless of whether you allowed parties to occur or not.
We lived (although didn’t always sleep) with the knowledge that any day our cash cow could dry up. Despite being conscientious owners and never even coming close to a complaint, our holiday home – not party house – dream could come crashing down.
Instead, the house itself was trashed.
A Gold Coast family decided to stay for a long weekend in our home. The parents went to dinner and the son went to town … calling all his friends to our place.
In the early hours of the morning, our manager was alerted to the ruckus and they were evicted.
The next morning I went around to assess the damage. The mother showed up and apologised profusely to me, they were paying for all damages blah, blah … but it didn’t matter.
Her money couldn’t fix our damaged reputation.
The next morning, the news grew worse. The cleaners discovered a rogue ecstasy pill under the bunk beds. My head reeled with the damage that could have been done to some curious toddler, forget the damage to our finances when we were sued.
As fate would have it, one week later a former guest contacted our manager with an offer to buy our home. The price was great and they would continue running it as a holiday home.
We took the money and ran.
It’s still a successful venture. Every now and then I look it up online and my head spins when I add up its income.
But not for one second do I think we made the wrong decision.
While ours was one of the first holiday homes in that area, it’s now literally littered with them. It saddens me to think that we contributed to the death of a neighbourhood.
Yes, there is big money to be made in this quasi-industry. But it’s also a big headache to do it right, which is why so
many don’t bother following the rules.
Worse, if owners buy the property solely as an investment and are never part of that community, why would they even care about the neighbours?
Assuming that they do, there’s still no guarantee it will work out. All the vetting in the world can’t prevent that one group reservation that ruins your rep. In our case, a local family. Who woulda thought?
However, holiday homes are here to stay. As a tourist, I know I would prefer to stay with extended family or friends together in one place than be boxed in a room with my kids.
For investors too, it’s a solid purchase.
But we do need more rules. And we need them to have teeth.
At the moment it’s too hard for those who care to do holiday letting right – and yet too easy to do the wrong thing.
At the very least, licensed managers need to be the middle man to make it easier for the good guys, and harder for the bad.
If your castle crumbles, it shouldn’t be the neighbours who pay the price.