Need a wine country break? Here we are ...

[lizzie]

... exhausted and stressed.

Nothing like settlement 2 days before Christmas and nothing about this purchase has been easy ... from the bank stuffing up finance and ending up having to pay cash ... right down to struggling to find out who has the information to "kill off" the old website ... hubby going to replace a few broken tiles (30 minute job) and ending up having to replace two shower floors (2 days job) ... every step has been testing.

First booking on 29th December - completely booked out ... bring it on!

http://www.belfordcottages.com.au/

 

[Jamie M]

Hey Lizzie

Is this your place?

Cheers

Jamie

 

[Family Man]

Im a little confused,

What is the code for the hefty discount for SS members and where do we type it in?

 

[baby blue eyes]

Looks great Lizzie!

 

[moyjos]

Looks great
I am trying to convince hubby to come down for a visit.

 

[lizzie]

Hey Lizzie

Is this your place?

Cheers

Jamie

Yep - ours

Not our home ... the SMSF/company just settled on this (dragged out since March) ... so we control it

Hubby can start drawing on his SMSF from June 2015, so it's part of the retirement plan ... but have an internal loan from our LOC to the SMSF to clear first.

 

[moyjos]

Hey Lizzie, you need to add the cottages website to your signature along with the garlic

 

[skater]

Hey Lizzie, you need to add the cottages website to your signature along with the garlic

Agreed! BUT OMG! You are going to be busy looking after both of these properties.

 

[lizzie]

Agreed! BUT OMG! You are going to be busy looking after both of these properties.

That's why I have a professional tourist accommodation manager in place ... no point in me fuddling around and stuffing it up

 

[skater]

That's why I have a professional tourist accommodation manager in place ... no point in me fuddling around and stuffing it up

Good move! I take it, it was bought as a Business, and the yield will cover putting a manager in place.

 

[lizzie]

We've rebranded and stripped and replaced the cottages of all the nanna nik naks (floral doonas, cafe curtains, vinyl blanket boxes, 20yr old lamps) ... and done a lot of landscape tidying ... as well as the physical safety and maintenance fixing.

A bit more to go but we'll get there over time.

The lady that's managing it also manages:

www.villaprovence.com.au
www.thelonghouse.com.au

... she lives local, has all the processes and teams in place ... and most importantly ... is paid as a percentage of bookings income (with a bonus if we net over hubby's wage replacement).

She is a great believer in full booking and would rather run a "special" to make $100/net profit night than have the cottage empty.

She's also a damn nice person (but ruthless when need be)

 

[kathryn d]

Congrats lizzie.
Looks very nice.

 

[wylie]

Well done on ridding the cottages of the "nana" decor. We go away a bit for weekends and I always feel frustrated to pay to stay at a place that could have been decorated by my 85 year old mother-in-law

Lighting is so important too and can ruin the ambience as much as "nana" decor. Fluro lights have no place in such a place.

 

[Ed Barton]

She is a great believer in full booking and would rather run a "special" to make $100/net profit night than have the cottage empty.

That's a very good attitude. The profit is in quieter times by reducing the price and keeping it full rather than the couple of months a year it achieves peak pricing.

I have a friend who manages an apartment hotel in a small QLD coastal town. He reckons a lot of hotel managers have their peak/off peak pricing and won't discount. Guess what? He's almost full all year round, when they're only full at peak times.

The hotel is a mix of 2 and 3 bed apartments. He also sells the 2 bed apartments as 1 beds at a $10 discount (more during quite times) to keep up the occupancy, which after turn over costs is the same net amount. He locks the second bedroom guaranteeing that that room doesn't need cleaning or laundering. Might be worth exploring?

A lot of hotels won't budge on their min stay. Where as he'll do 1 night (the typical stay is 3-7) - during peak times you can actually charge a premium for short stays by those that left booking too late and are happy to pay more to get away for a couple of nights.

I don't know if it's appropriate for your style of accommodation, but do you have, or plan to get star rating? It's not about how 'posh' the place is but does it tick the boxes. eg - faulty towers could get a five star rating if it had 24 hr room service, a pool, double curtains, mini-bar, gym etc...

He reckons the best ad bang for buck is motoring mags (ie NRMA, RACQ etc), but only for off peak bookings, and time your ads accordingly.

 

[Ed Barton]

The lady that's managing it also manages:

www.villaprovence.com.au
www.thelonghouse.com.au

Those two sites are pretty crap. I've only looked at your landing page, but it appears much better.

 

[lizzie]

Those two sites are pretty crap. I've only looked at your landing page, but it appears much better.

I agree - I'm not a fan of her webpages ... mine was done by a different designer (who also did the Pokolbin Purple webpage) ... but the places themselves are very nice and more upmarket than mine.

We're more "family" orientated - and a step up from the caravan park. That was one of the major reasons we bought the place (asides from being really well priced for the infrastructure) - when times are good people will "upgrade" to our property - and when times are not so good people will "downgrade" without sacrificing a nice, comfortable place to stay.

The point was, the manager is experienced, knows her stuff around bookings and dealing with customers, runs at 95% capacity and has the cleaning, linen, maintenance etc teams in place at a great price.

We won't go for a star rating ... it doesn't mean much nowadays and just another expense. Better to get good reviews on websites IMO.

 

[Deena]

Best of luck Lizzie. First place I check is Trip Advisor for reviews, I too would be happy with this kind of word of mouth rather then a rating.