Singapore Is Cracking Down on Illegal Vacation Rentals

The Housing Board investigated 184 cases of short-term leasing in public flats last year, a 73 per cent increase from 106 cases the year before.

It also received around 45 complaints about suspected cases from 2012 to last year.

Violators may lose their flats and get fined if they are found guilty of renting out spaces for less than six months.

Private home owners are not exempt from the six-month rule. They can be fined up to S$200,000 (US$158,995) and be jailed up to 12 months.

The authorities say that such short-term rentals are banned as they might disturb neighbours in residential estates.

An Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) spokesman added that most residents prefer “familiarity” and not to live among “transient strangers”.

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But that has not stopped more online advertisements offering these short-term rentals, which span a few days to months, from sprouting.

Roomorama’s co-founder Teo Jia En, 32, told The Straits Times that her home-rental portal has more than 500 listings for Singapore properties, an increase of about 30 per cent compared to last year (only 192 on the website …if we are not wrong)

Turochas Fuad, 39, chief executive and co-founder of travelmob, a similar website, also noted an “increased adoption of hosts and listings” across Asia Pacific, though he declined to provide numbers for Singapore.

A search on travelmob turned up over 500 local listings, and another portal, Airbnb, has more than 1,000.

Many of these listings are for short-term rentals, and most appear to be of condominium units and rooms.

The URA looked into about 2,100 unauthorised uses of private residences last year, up from 1,300 cases in 2011.

These numbers include both short-term leases and unauthorised conversions of private properties into dormitories or boarding houses.

But owners and tenants, many of whom sublet their homes to help pay their mortgage or rent and to meet new people, said that they have not received any complaints from neighbours.

“They are very supportive,” said a 40-year-old business owner who has been renting out a room in her Novena condominium on Airbnb since June 2012.

She has had 13 bookings so far, with guests, usually tourists, paying S$110 each night and staying for three days on average.

“It’s such an incredible opportunity to meet people from all over the world without leaving your living room,” said a 29-year-old marketing manager who started subletting the master bedroom in her four-room Chinatown HDB flat last December.

Apart from tourists, some of her guests are students or those here on work attachments who stay for weeks.

Visitors prefer renting these spaces rather than staying at hotels as they are often cheaper and include access to amenities such as a kitchen.

For example, one can rent a room in a Chinatown flat for S$35 a night or S$230 a week, while a hotel room in the same area might cost about S$150 a night.

Teo said: “It allows them to live like locals, which is unlike what they would get in a cookie-cutter hotel.”

While Fuad said that most travelmob guests prefer to stay in the central area for convenience, Teo noted that Roomorama’s most popular rentals are in East Coast and Bukit Timah.

“They prefer a respite from the hustle and bustle of the city centre,” she explained.

Asked whether they help to enforce the short-term rental rules, Fuad replied: “We do state in our terms and conditions for our hosts to understand their local laws before they list on our site.”

“The onus is on the home owners to make sure they are in compliance,” added Teo, noting that licensed serviced apartments advertise on her website.

Source : http://skift.com/

HouseTrip axes private rooms from portfolio, will lose 5% of product

Shifting of the sand in the vacation rental marketplace with confirmation that HouseTrip is scrapping all listings of private rooms from its database

HouseTrip informed hosts of the “important change” to its service via a recent letter in which it said as part of a new focus on couples and families it would be “removing all private bedrooms from our website” and in future only allow entire properties to be listed.

The letter adds: “During this time we will be taking away search functionality for private bedrooms in shared accommodation, and removing them from our search results so they can no longer found by prospective guests.

” Existing bookings or upcoming check-ins will not be affected by the change, HouseTrip adds. HouseTrip says it is currently running at a 95%-5% ratio in favour of complete apartments to shared spaces, so it does not anticipate any major erosion of its overall product spread.

An official says: “We want to be known for providing the best range of complete properties available for short-term rent. And we feel that this clarification of our offering is the best way to do it.” Including shared spaces in its portfolio was found to have “muddied the waters”, the official says. “The feedback we have received from many travellers is ‘yes, I want to get tips and advice from an owner. yes, I want the personal touch. Yes, I may even want to feel like a local.

But when the info is given and the key swapped, I want the apartment to become my space and I don’t necessarily want to become best friends or swap Facebook details with the landlord’.”

The company denies the move is anything to do with recent regulatory or taxation shenanigans affecting the likes of Airbnb or Wimdu which have a focus on shared spaces.

Nevertheless, issues such as these are clearly triggering a fair degree of strategic soul searching for a number of brands as they look to anticipate where around the world they may face hurdles over their ability to operate (or those of their product hosts).

Airbnb, for example, recently celebrated (and potentially breathed a huge sigh of relief) a regulatory win in France when a legislation was introduced allowing home owners to rent out rooms without seeking permission from local authorities.

Its head of global public policy, David Hantman, says some 83% of its hosts in the French capital Paris share their primary residence – in other words, let out a room OR only have the property available for a limited period of time.

HouseTrip’s move possibly illustrates how the main players in the rental/sharing economy are re-positioning themselves as providers of product in one particular area (shared vs complete rental).

A source who until recently worked within one of the main global players in the sharing economy says there is a wider trend emerging: “After seeing good traction and interest in the mass audience, the involved companies are trying to get out of a niche and attack a more established market, providing an experience closer to what hotel customers are used to.

“The peer economy is a nice thing, but there are reasons why hotels and other kind of accommodation facilities need to comply to specific rules… and the private accommodation market is probably trying to anticipate the regulatory movements so that they will be more ready when the time will come.”

Source: http://www.tnooz.com

 

How Much Is an Airbnb Listing Really Worth?

Yesterday news reports revealed that Airbnb was raising $400-$500 million dollars from TPG Capital Management LP at a $10 billion valuation.

Unlike many darlings of the startup scene, Airbnb has plenty of revenue coming in. But is there enough to justify a value that puts it above the market caps of Hyatt, Accor, Wyndham, InterContinental Hotel Group, and Choice Hotels, not to mention the public and profitable HomeAway?

A few years ago comparing a vacation or short-term rental company to a hotel brand would have been downright silly. At their extremes, rental sites were electronic bulletin boards while hotels were brick and mortar establishments with lots of employees and dependencies.

But as hotels have moved towards asset-light, brand-centric models where they eschew real estate holdings in favor of managing properties for owners, and companies like Airbnb are eyeing a suite of services that encompass the entire travel experience, the comparison is not so insane.

In an asset-light strategy, hotel brands make money from management contracts and a double-digit share of gross revenues. Airbnb collects fees from the host and the user, and HomeAway offers a mix of plans, from the more traditional subscription to a percentage of each booking. In the end, they all offer the promise of a night’s sleep with a varying array of comforts and amenities. And users discover and book them in much the same way.

What’s a Room or a Listing Worth?

Brand Number of rooms/listings valuation Value of room
Hyatt 147,388   $8.42 billion                            $57,128
Starwood 346,063   $14.97 billion                 $43,258
Hilton 678,630   $21.86 billion                        $32,211
Airbnb(adj)330,000   $10 billion                   $30,303
Marriott 675,623   $16.15 billion                    $23,903
Accor 455,985   $8.55 billion                           $18,759
Airbnb 550,000   $10 billion                            $18,181
Wyndham 600,000   $9.3 billion                    $15,500
InterCont 686,873   $7.93 billion                   $11,545
Choice 500,000   $2.71 billion                        $5,420
HomeAway 890,000   $3.87 billion              $4,348

Who’s on Top

Using some third-grade math, we put a value on each room and listing for the major public hotel companies, as well as Airbnb and competitor HomeAway. Admittedly, there is a bit of comparing apples to oranges here. But understanding which fruit is what helps explain the transition that’s happening.

The number of available rooms held by the hotel chains are disclosed publicly, and they tend to range from single rooms to suites and even to some vacation rentals (at Wyndham and Marriott in particular).

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Read more about what Airbnb and the sharing economy mean to the future of travel.
A “listing” on a rental website could be for a multi-room house or a bed in a shared room (although that is incredibly rare). They also are not constant. The volume of listings fluctuate by season (summer rentals), opportunity (a big event in town), and need (the host needs to make some extra cash). They may also only be available a few days a week — and can disappear overnight. This is changing, though, as HomeAway and Airbnb are more about professional landlords than one-off hosts.

HomeAway’s number of listings is revealed in public disclosures. The number of Airbnb’s rooms is somewhat of a mystery.The latest number it has shared with media is 550,000 listings. When Skift looked at the New York market, we saw a wide discrepancy — our numbers were 40% less than Airbnb’s numbers — between what it stated on the website and what our data dive revealed. Because of that, we’ve provided both an adjusted number based on a ‘Skift discount’ and one based on Airbnb’s numbers.

HomeAway has more overnight options than anyone else has rooms or listings, but it’s at the bottom of the pile when it comes to the value of these listings in comparison to its market cap. As HomeAway moves more property managers from a subscription model to a per-night transaction fee, expect this value to increase.

On the flip side, Hyatt does not have the largest market cap (it’s smaller than the Airbnb valuation), but its rooms are worth more than any of its competitors. Starwood and Hilton also appear at the top, with Marriott and Accor sandwiched between the two Airbnb values. Choice Hotels, with its voluminous yet low-budget offerings like Days Inn, brings up the bottom for hotel brands.

 

Source skift.com

Meriton Serviced Apartments Opt for ECOSYSTEM Energy Management Solution

Meriton Serviced Apartments (MSA) is Australia’s fastest-growing accommodation brand, with more than 3,200 rooms in 13 properties across Australia’s east coast. MSA has installed the ECOSYSTEM wireless occupancy based energy management system in 178 luxury apartments of up to 98m² each in their MSA Pitt Street property in the Sydney CBD, rated #1 by Trip Advisor.

ECOSYSTEM is a part of the suite of energy retrofit solutions offered by Delaware start-up Efficiency Grid LLC. After showing over 60% reduction in apartment unit kWh usage during winter testing, Meriton Serviced Apartments has expanded its energy efficiency program by choosing ECOSYSTEM for its Pitt Street property. ECOSYSTEM was installed in over 178 suites with a full array of wireless occupancy and door sensors to better control the apartments’ HVAC equipment.

This project was managed by Efficiency Grid’s Australian Service Provider, Smart Hotel Solutions (SHS). Doron Danon, SHS’s Managing Director, said, “We were impressed with the ECOSYSTEM solution as these are large apartments and retrofitted during very high building occupancy. This initiative by MSA will result in a saving of close to 700,000kWh of energy annually.”

Efficiency Grid founder Phillip Kopp commented that “It’s great to get into the AU serviced apartment segment as there is a tremendous amount of energy saving potential there. We were very pleased with the work done by Smart Hotel Solutions.”

About Meriton Serviced Apartments: In 10 years, Meriton Serviced Apartments has risen to become the largest Australian-owned accommodation owner-operator, delivering luxury accommodation with an emphasis on quality, spaciousness and style. MSA offers serviced apartment accommodation with stunning views and superb locations in Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

Please find out more about Meriton by visiting http://www.meritonapartments.com.au

About Efficiency Grid: Efficiency Grid LLC is a Delaware based start-up addressing the $1 Billion hotel energy management market. Efficiency Grid provides end-to-end solutions that help commercial building owners and operators reduce HVAC and lighting energy usage. Their goal is to develop a large network of “Virtual Power Plants” using inventory focused in hotel buildings. This includes what they have dubbed “energy middleware” which includes hardware and software solutions that enable building operators, utilities and financing partners to successfully implement energy retrofit projects.

Please find out more about Efficiency Grid by visiting http://www.efficiencygrid.com

TripAdvisor introduces ‘Holiday Rentals’ in India

TripAdvisor, the travel site announced the launch of holiday rentals on TripAdvisor Holiday Rentals India, allowing travellers to search and compare more than 550,000 properties around the world. Available properties are wide-ranging and can accommodate single travellers up to large groups in villas, ski chalets, apartments, houseboats, castles, treehouses and more.

“We are excited to introduce holiday rentals to our Indian audience as it will open a whole new world of accommodation options for the ardent Indian travelers especially ones who love to travel with their family. According to our estimates, an average Indian family (two adults + two children) can save up to 57 per cent in a destination like Venice by opting for holiday rental versus a regular hotel stay. We are confident that this new offering from TripAdvisor will see a tremendous uptake among the avid travelers in the country” commented Nikhil Ganju, Country Manager, TripAdvisor India.

“We’re thrilled to give Indians access to our vast and growing collection of holiday homes around the world. Travellers can now find pictures, reviews, descriptions and booking information on 550,000+ properties, while homeowners can list their properties for free and benefit from TripAdvisor’s unsurpassed audience of 260 million users per month,” commented Dermot Halpin, President, TripAdvisor Holiday Rentals.

TripAdvisor Holiday Rentals for travellers

Booking a holiday rental property is easy: through the ‘Holiday Rentals’ tab on TripAdvisor, travellers will find pictures and extensive details on available properties. Users can filter properties by date of stay, destination, size, amenities/options such as ‘private pool’ or ‘pet-friendly’, and more. When a suitable property is found, travellers can quickly and easily arrange payment and/or contact the owner with more questions.

Travellers consistently cite value as one of the greatest benefits to holiday rentals. Particularly for families or groups planning a holiday of a week or more, the savings offered by holiday rentals can be significant. For instance, Indians taking a trip during the upcoming school break could save up to 57 per cent in popular destinations worldwide by choosing a holiday rental

Source: http://www.hospitalitybizindia.com/

Same holiday rentals listing for several websites: what can be their value?

Tripping, the world’s largest search engine for vacation rentals, just announced a partnership with leading European provider Interhome (it’s not the sole!)

The deal will make Interhome’s 33,000 vacation properties immediately available on Tripping.

The addition of Interhome is a boost for the already massive vacation rental platform, which hosts over 1 million listings across 50,000 cities worldwide.

Tripping currently aggregates properties from major rental sites including Homeaway, Flipkey, Wimdu, Housetrip…

Founded in 1965, Switzerland-based Interhome is the operator of 15 regional subsidiaries and is one of Europe’s premier providers of professionally managed vacation rentals worldwide, with a concentration of listings in France, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

“Partnering with Interhome allows us to expand the properties offered on Tripping, particularly within the growing European market,” said Tripping CEO Jen O’Neal. “Travelers now have thousands of beautiful new properties to stay in, all from a trusted source with decades of industry experience.”

Interhome COO, Jörg Herrmann said the deal will greatly expand its global reach.

“We’re excited to start distributing our listings on Tripping. Our properties will have greater visibility on an international platform, which is a good thing for travelers and hosts alike,” he said.

“By joining forces with the leading aggregator in the vacation rentals space, we’ll also be able to heighten Interhome’s global brand and remain competitive both in Europe and overseas.”

About Tripping

Tripping is a metasearch site for vacation homes and short-term rentals offering over 1 million rentals across 50,000 cities worldwide.

Travelers can use Tripping to easily compare the world’s best home rentals by price, reviews, ratings and location. Based in San Francisco, the company was founded by tech industry veterans from Expedia, Travelzoo and StubHub. You can search, compare and save on your ideal home rental at http://www.tripping.com.

TripAdvisor rental service Holiday Lettings gets tough on owners who take a booking privately

Holiday Lettings, the vacation rental brand owned by TripAdvisor, has struck off more 2,100 properties from its system this year for bad service.

The company says 1% of its total portfolio of rental properties have been “deactivated” for a number of reasons, including those that try to take a booking with a customer away from the Holiday Lettings website.

Property owners that do not engage with potential customers and other activities deemed to be offering a “poor service” are also under scrutiny and could find themselves turfed off the site as a result.

Holiday Lettings also says it will be rewarding the “most responsive” property owners with better rankings in search results, also to those that consistently offer online payment to guests.
Whilst the move (Holiday Lettings calls it a “campaign”) is in-part designed to protect guests by offering financial protection if bookings and payments are made on the site, behind the scenes it also solves an ongoing problem for listing services across the travel sector.

Many travel service providers use a directory to capture potential customers and then secure bookings privately to avoid paying a commission to the intermediary.

Holiday Lettings says customer reviews left against properties on the site (similar to those on the mothership brand, TripAdvisor) are not taken into consideration as part of the deactivation project.

Source: http://www.tnooz.com/

Little change in demand for serviced flats in Bangkok last year

Demand for serviced apartments last year remained unchanged in most areas of Bangkok despite the political turmoil, according to CBRE Thailand, an international real-estate adviser.

The average occupancy rate for the whole year stood at 81 per cent, a slight decrease from 2012, as a result of lower occupancy rates in some serviced apartments located close to the areas where there were demonstrations.

Serviced apartments in Bangkok are usually targeted at two types of customers: long-term tenants who are usually single expatriates working in the city, where serviced apartments compete with non-serviced apartments and condominiums for rent; and short-term-rate tenants who are usually tourists or business travellers, where serviced apartments compete with hotels. Most serviced apartments have one-bedroom or studio units.

The number of expatriates with work permits based in Bangkok increased by 12 per cent year-on-year. Japanese nationals working in Bangkok make up the highest percentage of the long-term rental market for serviced apartments.

Serviced-apartment rental rates did not increase because of competition from the many one-bedroom condominium units available for rent in the long-term market. As of the fourth quarter, the average rent of Grade A serviced apartments in Bangkok was just above Bt1,000 per square metre per month, and the Sukhumvit area achieved the highest average rents of almost Bt1,200 per square metre per month.

According to CBRE Research, there are very few serviced apartments under construction. However, there are more than 5,000 hotel rooms begin built in Bangkok, increasing the competition for the short-term-rate market.

There are more than 20,000 condominium units under construction in downtown Bangkok, of which 70 per cent will be one-bedroom and studio units, many of which have been bought by investors looking to rent them out. This will increase competition in the long-term rental market for studio and one-bedroom units.

To date, the political unrest has had limited impact. The short-term-rate market has suffered from a decline in visitor numbers, especially in those properties located close to the protest areas.

There has not been a decline in expatriates working in Bangkok, and so the long-term market remains largely unaffected.

As of the fourth quarter, the average occupancy rate of the overall serviced-apartment market stood at 80 per cent, only a slight decrease from the third quarter.

Demand for serviced apartments is concentrated in a limited number of areas, principally Sukhumvit, Lumpini and Sathorn. These are the areas favoured by expats living in Bangkok and by tourists.

CBRE believes there will be limited potential to develop serviced apartments outside these core locations as rental rates for such properties decline considerably.

Despite competition from hotels and rental condominiums, the limited new supply of serviced apartments means that there is a possibility that owners will be able to raise rental rates.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/

Frasers Hospitality: 30,000 serviced apartments over the next five years

Frasers Hospitality has marked its Sweet 16th ‘Fraser Day’ by revealing the company’s massive growth plans are on track.

The company has gone from two properties and 400 serviced residences in 1998 to 92 properties and 15,500 serviced apartments today.

Frasers Hospitality Chief Executive Officer Choe Peng Sum says the company is on track to double its inventory to 30,000 serviced apartments over the next five years.

Choe said, “It has been a challenging 16 years, with recession in 1998, the 9/11 crisis in 2001, SARS in 2003, and the Global Financial Crisis sparked off by the US subprime crisis and collapse of financial institution Lehman Brothers in 2008.

“But through it all, Frasers Hospitality grew at a compounded annual growth rate of 22%.”

Frasers Hospitality has three brands of gold-standard serviced residences – Fraser Suites, Fraser Place and Fraser Residence – as well as Modena by Fraser, targeted at the road warrior; and Capri by Fraser, a design-led hotel residence aimed at the e-generation. With the wide product offering and lifestyle choice, Frasers Hospitality has seen unbroken growth in its 16-year history and is well positioned to meet its goal to double in the next five years.

Besides the strong brand offerings, the recovering economy in the European Union will provide a good source of growth.

Choe said, “Property prices are recovering and we have made some favourable investments there.”

There is also strong demand for extended stay and very limited supply. Even in London, serviced residences make up only 6% of the total accommodation supply which is even less than Singapore where serviced residences account for about 10% of supply.

As a result, ‘serviced apartments in London tend to post an average weekly rate of about £900 to £1000 with occupancy usually at around 85%’, said a study by Colliers International.

The study, entitled ‘Focus on the London Serviced Apartment Sector’ said, ‘According to The Apartment Service Worldwide, the market is still considered under-[supplied with London having just 1.2 apartments per 1000 business visitors compared to New York (5.2), Hong Kong (5.3), Sydney (2.6) and Singapore (1.8).’

EMEA (Europe Middle East Africa) will see faster growth and while it makes up 18% of Frasers Hospitality’s inventory, this will rise to 21% by 2019.

With consistent economic growth forecast for the near time, conditions are ripe for the ambitious doubling of Frasers Hospitality over the next five years.

The International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook released in Jan 2014 forecasts growth in the US economy of 2.8% in 2014 and 3.0% in 2015.

“The Euro area is turning the corner from recession to recovery. Growth is projected to strengthen to
1% in 2014 and 1.4% in 2015,” the report said. On China, the report said, ‘Growth in China rebounded strongly in the second half of 2013, due largely to an acceleration in investment. This surge is expected to be temporary, in part because of policy measures aimed at slowing credit growth and raising the cost of capital. Growth is thus expected to moderate slightly to around 7.5% in 2014–15.’

Choe said, “The toughest of these times was probably the global recession. We had started to expand in China and then the recession hit. We did a careful study and figured that the Chinese economy would grow even in those times, so we continued with our expansion unabated, and it has paid off.”

Frasers operates properties in Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, with a Brisbane hotel set to commence construction in the coming months.

 

source : www.spicenews.com.au/

Serviced Apartment Summit in London on July 8th

This B2B conference for the serviced apartment and extended stay sector is designed to bring together leaders from across this growing sector to learn, share best practice and map the future.

Paul Constantinou Quest

Diane Mayer Marriott

 

 

 

Buying Business Travel is pleased to be media partner to the Serviced Apartment Summit.

The event starts at 15:00 on July 8 with the opportunity to tour key local properties, followed by a networking cocktail reception at Grosvenor House Apartments by Jumeirah Living. This is followed by a full-day conference on July 9 at The Montcalm Marble Arch hotel, 34 – 40 Great Cumberland Place, London

There will be networking opportunities with owners, operators, investors and buyers. Keynote speakers, seminars and panel debates will explore a range of topics including:

• Future prospects for the sector

• Capitalising on the corporate business, relocation, leisure and ex-pat markets

• Integrating serviced apartments in to mixed-use developments

• Acquisition strategies and case studies

• Understanding corporate buyer objectives

Serviced Apartment Summit