Showing posts with label circle on cavill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label circle on cavill. Show all posts

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Gold Coast Auction Update


The AFR had a headline this week: "Gold Coast results highlight weakness". There were several auction events last weekend on the Gold Coast. Some agencies had clearance rates as low as 10% according to the AFR. The Ray White Sunday auction sold $12.4M worth of property, 41 sales from 103 listings, with an average sales price of $312,000.

A Circle on Cavill penthouse sold for $2.5M, originally sold off the plan for $5.95M. The Gold Coast press calls this a positive sign! How is making a loss of almost $4M a positive sign?
A large Q1 apartment, 3104, sold for $575,000 furnished, less than the mid $600Ks paid for this apartment unfurnished by the previous owner. See photo above.
Two Soul apartments (still off the plan) failed to attract bidders.
The Gold Coast press says that things are looking up! Can anyone explain to me why a large capital loss is a good thing?

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Landmark case sends a warning to investors

"Know how you should and shouldn't market your apartment, particularly when the onsite complex manager owns the building trademark."


From September 2010 edition of Australian Property Investor

Similar to issues raised in prior posts here.

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Offsite Letting Agents

In a prior post, I warned against dealing with unlicensed or unusual offsite letting agents for holiday rentals. Recently, Accommodation One on the Gold Coast closed down -- leaving landlords and guests out of pocket. So guests of both Tailly (A1) and Accommodation 1 have recently lost their holiday bookings as well as their prepayments. Booking sites such as RoamFree and eBay should take some responsibility for dealing with these operators and helping them market their accommodation. ebay has set up a compensation fund for guests, but landlords miss out (and now have to find new tenants in competition with all of Accommodation One's other landlords, in a slow winter market.)

Monday, May 3, 2010

Beware of unlicensed offsite operators

The results of the recent Circle on Cavill lawsuit is a warning both to renters and apartment owners who use unlicensed offsite operators.

Tailly leased about 40 apartments in Circle on Cavill from owners, on a long term basis, for example, on one year leases. He then advertised the apartments for rent on the Internet on a short term basis. The Federal Court found that his websites were illegal, and shut them down. Tailly then went into bankruptcy. The apartment owners were not paid rent. The renters and holidaymakers lost their money and had no booking -- Tailly collected the money upfront at the time of booking, and then spent the money. Tailly was not a licensed real estate agent or travel agent -- just a tenant illegally subletting his apartments.

So if you are an apartment owner, make sure that you are using a licensed real estate agent and that you prohibit your tenant from subletting. (In this case, many of the apartment owners used real estate agents that expressly allowed Tailly to sublet!) If you are a renter or holidaymaker, it is best to deal directly with the property or use a reputable website such as Wotif.

If you are getting a too-good-a-deal from eBay, Stayz or a website that is not operated by a real estate agent or travel agent, then watch out! Not all websites are legitimate.

Another example is Paul Whitehead and his company, WorldTourism. Take care when booking with WorldTourism, to make sure you understand who you are booking with. See story on A Current Affair, and these newspaper stories.