Agent calls for holiday rental round-table

A Phillip Island real estate agent has called on the shire to convene a round-table to “thrash out” solutions to bad behaviour from commercial holiday home rentals.

John Matthews (pictured) has run Getaway Phillip Island for 15 years and was previously the chair of the Phillip Island Tourism Association for 20 years, also running a motel where Cowes Coles now stands.

He said the problem on Phillip Island had spiked over the past five years – especially on the back of low interest rates – with an uptake of commercial holiday homes as investment properties by Melbourne owners who have no connection to the island.

Mr Matthews estimated there were now about 2500 commercial holiday home rental businesses on the island.

“A lot of the owners have basically no experience in managing commercial holiday rentals,” Mr Matthews said.

“They also don’t have to live across the road or next to people who party all night. They are oblivious and don’t care about the issues their investment is causing. They turn a blind eye.”

He said estate agencies such as Getaway Phillip Island had years of experience and policies in place to avoid negative outcomes.

“You won’t find agencies renting to schoolies, for example. We block out that period and we have a blanket ban not to rent to anyone under 24.

“When we get a booking request we do an enormous amount of due diligence and have been in the business long enough to smell a rat.”

Mr Matthews said all their listed holiday homeowners were directed to join Bass Coast Shire’s holiday home registration scheme (see separate story), and “we assist them to fill in the paperwork”.

“But those owners are the honest ones. There’s a massive amount who don’t register with council.”

Mr Matthews called on the shire to convene a round table of impacted people – neighbours and homeowners – to “thrash out the issues, to curtail some of the problems”.

“Perhaps one of the solutions could be a levy on people who rent to schoolies or party groups who do damage to the island and where the ratepayer forks out to clean up the mess. Things like that we need to explore, to hold these people to account,” he said.

“The professional owners are fine, but how do we get to those based in Melbourne and who turn a blind eye. That is the challenge.”

He added that it was important for the island to maintain a good reputation to other visitors.

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