Monday, March 30, 2009

Perth is Officially the Hardest Place in the World to Get a Hotel Room

A recent survey taken by global accounting firm Deloitte has officially concluded that Perth is the hardest place in the world to get a room. So if you were thinking of giving up buying your own place and moving into a hotel.. good luck :)

Australia dominates hotels occupancy global index - Perth still no1

For a second consecutive year, Perth has claimed 1st place in the 2008 Deloitte Hotel Occupancy Global Ranking Index, in which Australian cities dominated the top 12 positions, with Brisbane at 7th, Sydney 8th, Melbourne 9th and Adelaide 12th.

The sixth edition of the Deloitte Global Hotel Performance Review compared the performance of over 100,000 hotels worldwide and is compiled from data extracted from the Smith Travel Research Global database.

Varying in size, the majority of the hotels are classified three stars and above and include both independent and group operated units.Perth again stole the show as the number one performer worldwide with occupancy rates at 82.4% outdoing the Big Apple (New York) ranked 2nd at 81.9% and other mega cities such as Hong Kong ranked 4th with 81.2% and London ranked 5th with 81.1%. Brisbane had occupancy levels of 79.9%, followed closely by Sydney at 79.4%, Melbourne at 79.2% and Adelaide at 78.5%.

Average room rates increased by 5.6% to US$146 for hotels in Australia and Oceania in 2008. Michael Kaplan, Hospitality Partner with Deloitte, said the fact that five Australian cities made it into the occupancy top 20 list shows how the country's tourism sector is becoming a more successful enterprise."In a very difficult market, the results are great news for our hoteliers.

While occupancy rates fell across many cities around the world, including Australia, our cities once again proved to be performing solidly, especially in the current economic environment," Mr Kaplan said."It is hoped that the epic movie, 'Australia', released at the end of 2008 may well inspire tourists to take a trip down under and our cities will continue to dominate the occupancy index in 2009.

The weaker Australian dollar could also work in local hoteliers' favour as Australia will be a cheaper destination while locals will also choose to holiday at home rather than take the route to the more expensive overseas trip."The report also noted that more than 20.4% of the world's tourists visited Asia Pacific in 2008 (or 188.3 million tourists), making it the second most popular region after Europe, with 52.9% (488.5 million tourists). Americas had 16% (147.6 million tourists) of the market share, Middle East 5.7% (52.9 million tourists) and Africa 5.1% (46.9 million tourists).

The report is available at http://www.deloitte.com.au

Friday, March 27, 2009

Real Estate Mega Auction in WA

An interesting think happened today. In Perth's Sheraton Hotel, 17 properties sold in less than four hours for a total of $6 million but another 28 didn't get any attention. The Golden Ballroom hosted the Ray White Auction Spectacular which also led to many other properties entering negotiations with price tags discussed over $1 million. 

The cheapest property sold under the hammer was $193,000 for a block in High Wycombe. 

The most expensive was a house in Wanneroo, which sold for $1.3 million. 

An interesting statistic is that in Australia 53 per cent of properties have sold either prior to auction or under the hammer. Would you buy a property in the heat of an auction?

Thursday, March 5, 2009

WA Suburbs that are Cheaper to Buy than Rent

The West Australian reported today that the Commonwealth Bank has prepared a report that shows the suburbs around the country that are cheaper to buy than to rent. This is interesting as many people presume that renting is what you do if you cannot afford a home. In many cases, it is the complete opposite, being more expensive to rent than buy.

So the top ten suburbs that are cheaper to buy than rent in WA are:
  1. Baynton, in Roeburne ($3,877.48 per month cheaper to buy!!!)
  2. South Hedland ($2,388.48 per month cheaper to buy)
  3. Dampier ($2,049.17 per month cheaper to buy)
  4. Kambalda West ($273.66 per month cheaper to buy)
  5. Rangeway, in Geraldton ($211.45 cheaper)
  6. Morgantown, in Carnarvon ($134.70 cheaper)
  7. Utakarra, in Geraldton ($113.15 cheaper)
  8. Boulder ($71.09 cheaper)
  9. Kalgoorlie ($36.46 cheaper)
  10. East Perth ($7.37 cheaper)
* For those outside of Perth, East Perth is the only metropolitan suburb on this list. Many of the above places are in mining towns in regional areas of Western Australia.

Most Read Posts