Bad news day for the resorts
St Falls has fallen ... over!
It’s all over!
Anyone who owns an investment property at Falls Creek (or at Mt Hotham or Dinner Plain) woke this morning to the news that its value has fallen dramatically – to less than half - following the Fire sale @ Falls Creek over the weekend:
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THE Victorian property market went on a downhill run yesterday when dozens of properties in the ski village of Falls Creek sold for a fraction of their retail price at a single ”no reserve” auction that, at times, resembled a fire sale.
Developer and publisher of The Monthly Morry Schwartz made a dramatic exit from the alpine property market at the first ”no reserve” Helmsman auction of real estate held in Australia.Mr Schwartz and his business partner Callum Fraser sold 74 apartments and three retail spaces for $12.8 million: the most expensive a three-bedroom unit that went for $410,000, the cheapest a one-room bedsit that sold for $30,000.
… Mr Schwartz said he was ”very happy” with the results.
”I think that all we did was we brought a lot of people in and we established the market price.
”And that’s the real price up there, that’s the value,” he said.
Comment:
I hate to say “I told you so” … but I did. Here, in this post that I wrote last month: Fire sale in the snow .
Good – it had to happen. For far too long, the greedy developers have developed the crap out of the market up there on the mountains (on leasehold land!) when there was no real demand for extra accommodation. Any investors stupid enough to be sucked in have no one to blame but themselves.
And, by all reports, this year has been an absolute disaster with the ski fields deserted on most days, despite some of the best snow conditions ever seen.
The conditions are not so good now, though. It’s all over – for the snow and for the property market at Falls Creek et al. But tell someone who cares … our forward bookings for Spring & Summer are looking pretty good. That’s because Bright is a real tourist destination year-round, unlike the hyped-up-but-hollow ski resorts.
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Promoting 'Beautiful Bright'.
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I agree with you Ray. Anyone who bought property at either resort at full whack will be pulling their hair out. One issue which might arise is the future of the committees of management at Falls & Hotham. This will impact on their revenue base. What’s the likelihood of the Alpine Shire taking them over at some point? I wonder if Mt Buller is under the same stress? I also wonder where this will leave Dinner Plain?
As you say – stick with the valleys!
It wouldn’t help the shire, Noel, because I’d be almost certain that the resorts would want a ‘Dinner Plain deal’, whereby all the rates they paid were isolated for their own use. That’d be a (further) drain on the shire and a (further) detriment to the honest residents living here. Why should we do any favours for the city-living investor owners of these overpriced and sub-standard dwellings?
Hi,Ray , Lets hope this adds up to the realization that the original centre of mountain tourism is and always has been in Bright / Mt Beauty/harrietville area and the tycoons from the city were trying to capitalize on their money supply,and not because they needed to be there, but because these “elites”wanted to make more and more loot and no matter who they disadvantaged. We just have to wait a little longer to find the “chooks” coming home to roost.It will be tough but Im afraid we must go through it.MOst likely we will have a flock of assylum seekers arriving in the district to set up their mosques and other paraphanallia and demonstrating for the introduction of the social system they fled from. Well enough chatter from me,I had better get to work to save up may carbon taxes.
Yes, we need more attention paid to the real tourist centres down here, as you say, Tuds. And the asylum seekers are just as welcome as paying guests @ GG or to set up home in Bright as anyone else is. A mosque might make a good change from some of the buildings that we’ve got … like that monument to waste and bad taste known as the (council owned) Bright Indoor Sports Centre.
Resorts only have themselves to blame Ray. I love my snowboarding but to take my partner and I up for the day is just $100 not including the overpriced food and drink. Lucky they don’t charge for parking as well. Better delete that so the bastards don’t get any ideas. Ps we get the local discount as well but I kinda got turned off this season when some poor bastard handed over $220 for 2 day passes. Let’s do the math on this adventure called skiing for a couple from Melbourne. $140 fuel , $150 accom, food $120, $160 ski hire, $30 chains, $35 resort entry, $220 ski passes. Over $800 just for a weekend (one day skiing). I would sooner get on a plane to NZ for a better deal. Better snow, Better service. And they, on the mountain resorts, wonder why they’re going broke and no one is coming. I could go on about this but it makes me angry when greed takes over enjoyment for all
Don’t start me on the white elephant. We’re nearly going to be spending $1M on that hole. Why could we not have contructed a new centre out at council chambers for that price. Then they could sell better employee benefits to prospective talent and attract better services with better employees than this lack luster excuse for a council
That’s what people in Melbourne are doing, John.
The Bright Indoor Pool services only a very small percentage of the population of Bright and it runs at a loss. Yet it’s the council’s single biggest capital outlay I’ve witnessed in the 15 years I’ve been here. And, as you say, they’re going to spend more on it … while town improvements that would benefit tourism and residents alike go ignored. The priorities are all wrong.
Another council business running at a loss. Like the Information Centres with their Buisiness Manager now in place. Another $85K on another employee yet the previous business manager has not been sacked just merely moved aside into other roles. I wonder if I could get a job there to shoot staples at a wall. I’d still be unproductive and unaccountable plus I’d be getting a inflated wage with a prestige title. Someone needs to show these people a little positive business management
Employing a “Business Manager” to run the VICs is a joke. What sort of business is it that only brings in $45,000 in holiday booking commissions and spends more on salaries than its total revenue? Unbelievable.
This is a real saga of incompetence and waste. When the council took over the Bright VIC from the private operator (or kicked him out) they thought they could just move in and take over his/her business without understanding the commercial reality that the old operator would just start up again elsewhere and take his/her 10 year database of customers and website presence at the same time. As they did.
Then the council VIC (which can’t even be called “The Bright VIC” for legal reasons) charges higher commission rates (12%) on any bookings PLUS they charge the business to list the accommodation property on their website. That’s not providing a service and it’s double dipping – we don’t need that kind of ‘help’.
And the council-owned GAV website is inferior to the Chamber website anyway. The online booking format is a joke and is not suitable to most accommodation properties that only have 6 or 7 units to let – we like to sort our own bookings please by direct contact! In contrast, the Chamber also charges to list on their website but most importantly they simply give direct referral to each business and we take it from there – with no commission. That’s how it should be.
It’s like there are two tourism industries here in Bright – the real one and then the pretend one that the council runs. They are kidding themselves if they think what they’re doing is in anyway relevant and helpful. It’s actually the opposite to that and, worse still, they’re doing it with our money.
Agreed and agreed. Is that double dipping on the agreed or can we call that advertising and a booking commission ?
Too True! Its unbelieveable we pay our rates to employ a ‘Manager’ of the VIC’s when there is no real information available as to what or any benefit this role, seemingly created to employ a person, actually has. The shire should have detailed information as to the actual benefit of the role: eg the increase in tourism, bookings, they need to have tangible figures to justify such a role.
Dodgy dealings in Churchill Avenue – they need to be MORE accountable for our money!
What I’ll do, Annie & John, is I’ll put up a post later this week about the council’s “Alpine Visitor Centre” in Bright (it can’t be called “The Bright Visitor Information Centre” because they forgot or refused to buy out the previous operator who simply moved up the road to new premises and does more business than they do).
I’ll put up the financial information taken from the council budget detailing last year’s figures and this year’s projected ones. It’s a joke and an indictment of the council’s so-called tourism division, which is duplicating private services AND which actually has two divisions – being the VIC and the tourism department.
Much appreciated Rayski. Then we’ll debate the hell out of it