Coast has the most to offer for luxury stays in holiday season
Some of the nation’s most luxurious homes are still available over the holiday season, renting out for as much as $18,000 a night during the height of summer.
Some of the nation’s most luxurious homes are still available over the holiday season, renting out for as much as $18,000 a night during the height of summer, with coastal properties proving far more popular than city or rural addresses.
Luxico managing director Alex Ormerod says there has been a late surge in bookings and she is expecting around 88 per cent occupancy of her portfolio of more than 300 holiday homes in December. January occupancies are expected to drop to 70 per cent. Ormerod says the booking numbers are about 5 per cent below pre-Covid times.
She says the constant opening and closing of borders is causing people to delay booking because they have been “burnt in the past”.
“We are finding people are travelling intrastate rather than interstate. We are hearing from people they would prefer to stay closer to home and jump in a car rather that fly,” Ormerod says.
“People have been scarred by the snap border closures last Christmas and the mad dash to get home on New Year’s Eve which was not much fun. People are wary even though we have been promised there won’t be any more border closures.”
Although there has been a late surge in bookings Ormerod says she still has some availability in coastal regions, which are proving really popular this summer. And while there are bookings for city properties, Sydney is doing well but Melbourne – where there are dozens of houses in suburbs such as Malvern and Toorak – is slow.
“There’s lots of availability in the cities. We still have homes available on the Gold Coast and Byron Bay.
“There has never been a better time to get a last-minute booking,’’ Ormerod says.
“The biggest impact has not been Covid, but the change in domestic travel restrictions which have been a nightmare.
“You have to be abreast of all the changing travel restrictions.
“We have had a lot of people waiting to decide whether to go overseas or stay locally. They have been waiting to see what the travel restrictions are.
“I think this new variant, Omicron, might make people err on the side of caution and stay local this year. It’s too hard to travel overseas. We have certainly seen that is the case.”
Although Byron Bay’s Broken Ridge house is no longer available, other rural properties Luxico has on its books include Ser Infinito on the NSW south coast which sleeps 16 and rents out for $5500 plus taxes per night. It is available until December 13 and from December 28 to January 14 as well as other scattered dates during the early part of the year.
At Portsea on the Mornington Peninsula, Shelly Beach, which sleeps 14 at a cost of $4000 per night plus taxes, is available from January 9, while Como Park House in South Yarra, which sleeps 8 and costs $2258 plus taxes per night, is available from December 13 to January 31.
Some of Queensland’s top luxury houses are widely available. They include Hillview Homestead at Currumbin which sleeps 18 and is available from January 6 to January 31 at a nightly rate of $2400 plus taxes.
Sir Richard Branson and Brett Godfrey’s Makepeace Island near Noosa can be rented for $18,000 a night plus taxes until December 19, as well as from January 26 to 31.
In NSW at Cattai, 44km northwest of Sydney, the Sweven Estate, which sleeps 10, has scattered availability through December and January at a nightly rate of $5000 plus taxes.