Jimmy and others,
I’ve enjoyed (yes, really) your posts over the last few years, and have paid particular attention to the ongoing debate on short term lets. Why would I be so interested? – well, I’m one of the “bad guys”, a person who owns an apartment in Sydney but who allows it to be let short term. Your vaguely positive post has given me the courage to share our situation and hopefully help your readers understand that it’s not always black and white. – one where I do believe short term lets are the only answer (for us at least), but where we have also done our best to do the right thing by our neighbours.
For us, short term letting (STL) is the only way we can access all that a city has to offer. We’re a couple in our 60’s who live on the Far South Coast (500km from Sydney) who like to spend time in the city, go to shows, visit cultural institutions, have a drink in a local bar, eat great food, and utilise public transport to do it all. And why not – after all, I bet many of your readers know of someone who has a holiday home on the coast down our way, and you may even have one yourself – and going somewhere different for your holidays is a great Australian tradition.
And it’s not only for holidays that we wanted a place in Sydney – I have an elderly mother (92) who needs someone with her 24/7 so she can stay at home, so when we’re in Sydney we split our time between staying in our apartment and relieving my brother from his carer role. Then there’s access to medical services – you may be aware that there are very few specialists who practice in regional areas, and because there’s a chronic shortage of doctors it is usually weeks (not hours) before you can get to see a GP, whereas in Sydney medical services abound, which we need as we get older.
For us, with Sydney property prices the way they are, the only way we can afford to have a city “pad” is to let it out when we are not using it (yes, we have a gigantic mortgage), and because we also want to use it has to be furnished. That means the short-term rental market is our only real option. But we wanted to do it responsibly, in an open and consultative way.
When we started looking in 2011 we limited our search to apartment blocks with a mixed use zoning – I could see the issues about residential zones coming (partly thanks to Flat Chat). When we found the place we love (in a large building of 138 apartments in Surry Hills) we checked the By-laws, and there were none restricting short term lets.
Once we bought, we immediately talked to building manager about what we were doing, and gave him our private contact details in case there was ever a problem. We also appointed a property management company specialising in temporary re-locations and Executive lets to find our tenants/guests and actively manage them along with the property. We leave it up to them to source tenants (which now that Airb’n’b is such a behemoth is becoming more challenging – I’m not a fan of Airb’n’b by the way) . Now, seven years on this arrangement is working well both for us and the building. I’m also giving back, by joining the Strata Committee, which means we get to know the permanent residents and they get to know us. I also get to hear about the problems in the building, and I can assure you that they are mainly caused by the poor behaviour of a few tenants with long term leases where the owner or real estate agent doesn’t give a toss, rather that the few apartments that are on the short term market with active property managers.
I’m sharing all the above to point out that there are (at least in my eyes) legitimate reasons for someone to “take it (their apartment) off the residential market” which shouldn’t warrant a “boo-hiss”. And if it is done with the knowledge of the Strata Committee and the Building Manager, with an easily contactable Property Management agency taking day-to-day responsibility, then STLs can even be a win-win for an apartment block.
A couple of other points – I believe that if it were possible to restrict investors to only one STL apartment that would be both equitable and also get rid of a lot of those for whom money is the only motivation. And finally, if it’s good enough for city people to buy a country holiday home and then let it out 365 days a year (as the new changes to the Planning laws will reportedly do), why are us country people being discriminated against? A number of country towns are dying as more and more rich Sydney-siders purchase holiday homes and drive up prices, meaning that the locals can no longer afford to live locally, and because their holiday homes are not permanently let, the population drops and the towns lose services – but that’s another story.
So, there’s always another side to the argument….