Coventry & Swanston Short-term Letting

Coventry is down 17.5% like for like, A$29,851 across October to September against A$36,171 in the same months a year earlier. That is 79% of the A$37,614 target, on 69.3% occupancy at A$119.40 a night.

May and June are where it broke. May fell from A$1,882 to A$772 and June from A$2,589 to A$466, on nights down from 22 to 10 and from 26 to 3. June also carried four maintenance nights. July held at A$2,426, August rose from A$1,642 to A$3,058 on 29 nights and September reached A$2,963 on 26 nights, against A$372 a year earlier when the owner stay took most of the month. August and September are one 37 night let at A$114, covering the Grand Final.

Nothing is booked after 21 October. October holds one 20 night Booking.com stay at A$144, taken in March, which already clears the month's A$2,219 target. From 21 October the calendar is open, including the Cox Plate, the Melbourne Cup Carnival and every November concert.

Price did not move much while that happened. May's achieved rate fell 9% as occupancy fell 41 points, and June's rose from A$100 to A$155 as occupancy fell to 11.5%, with 23 of 26 available nights unsold and the apartment compliant and freshly serviced. June rests on a single three night booking, so read it as two thin months rather than as a pricing decision.

January to April 2025 was a single long let, and a good one. Booking 8182 ran 21 January to 17 April at A$173.60 a night across all 86 nights, A$14,929 in total, which is why those months sit at or near 100% occupancy at a rate Coventry has not matched since. The Letting Agent settled it in four instalments and dated only the first, so the portal booking record carries A$4,321 of it. The rest comes from the statements and is returned to the nights it was earned on.

Strong through its first spring and summer, reaching A$243 a night in December and A$226 in January, then falling away from April. One seasonal cycle, so no prior year to compare against.

Coventry. Its first months with the Letting Agent, 16 May to December 2024, reached 75.0% of appraisal. 2025 cleared its appraisal at 117.0%, or 104.2% without the A$3,634.94 cancellation settlement, because a strong first half carried a weak second half. 2026 to September stands at 81.3% of what those months should produce, down from 90.4% to August because most of the 37 night September let settled on the August statement. September's own settled income includes a A$457.99 payout on a cancelled booking.

Swanston peaked in January and has not recovered its rate. A$5,432 on 24 nights at A$226, falling to A$998 in June on 8 nights at A$125. The twelve months to September 2026 come to A$35,886, 66% of the A$54,259 target, on 56.3% occupancy at A$182.16 a night.

Volume has come back, rate is following slowly. July, August and September ran 20, 23 and 21 nights, close to January's 24, but at A$124, A$133 and A$148 against January's A$226. The apartment is selling again at about two thirds of the rate.

October is close to target. Ten nights booked, A$1,996 against A$2,073, at A$200 a night, the highest since January outside the Grand Prix. A two night Booking.com stay from 2 October was added on 25 September.

November opens at the right rate. One booking so far, four nights from 26 November at A$322, taken on 17 September and covering the Harry Styles dates. That is the highest rate outside the Grand Prix and it supports the event floors, but it is A$1,287 against a A$7,058 target, so the month is almost entirely unsold.

The weak months are empty. January 2026 at 35.5%, May at 32.3% and June at 11.5%.

57% of nights are in stays of 20 nights or more. Leaving out the 86 night let at A$173.60 in early 2025, those long stays earn A$103.50 a night against A$125.22 for shorter ones, which holds occupancy at a lower rate.

The weak months are sold too cheaply rather than empty. From April to June it held 27% to 43% occupancy, but at A$125 to A$139 a night against A$181 across the rest of the year, leaving out the Grand Prix month. One stay of 20 nights or more, 11% of nights.

⚑ STL-07 Coventry is 2.2 points lower on Booking.com than Airbnb, 7.2 against an Airbnb equivalent of 9.4 out of 10, largely from one 1.0 review posted on 26 January 2026, which holds the score down by about 0.9 of a point. Booking.com carries 38% of its nights, yet only 1 of its 8 reviews has a reply, and the 1.0 is not among them. Every Airbnb review has one.

⚑ STL-14 Value is weak, and only at Coventry, 6.8 on Booking.com and 4.4 on Airbnb, from two independent sets of guests. Coventry has a pool and spa but no gym or sauna, so this is an amenity and pricing question.

⚑ STL-07 Swanston is 1.6 points lower on Booking.com, 7.6 against an Airbnb equivalent of 9.2 out of 10, held down by a 3.0 review on 29 March 2026 about the car park and access instructions. It has no reply, and nor does a 3 star Airbnb review from July 2026 describing a two hour check-in over the car park fob. The most recent reply was in August 2026, leaving 11 of 17 answered.

Staff is its weakest score at 6.9, and Coventry's second weakest at 7.1. It appears on Booking.com only and measures the managing agent rather than the apartment.

Coventry: the rate decays toward arrival, and season hides part of it. Across all bookings the correlation is +0.28. Comparing bookings within the same month, so season cannot do the work, lifts it to +0.48, because some of Coventry's longest lead bookings fall in its cheap winter months. Earlier bookings pay more and the rate falls as dates approach.

Swanston: the opposite, and its headline is misleading in the other direction. The raw +0.59 looks like the stronger relationship of the two, but almost all of it is season and events. Strip those out and compare within the month and it falls to +0.30; restrict to midweek arrivals as well and it is +0.06. There is no lead time structure left.

Coventry holds up. The relationship survives every control at +0.27 to +0.36, and the supporting signs are there: achieved rates spread widely inside single months, A$93 to A$177 in December 2025 and A$78 to A$137 in April 2026, and outside event windows short stays arriving Friday or Saturday earn A$136 against A$107 midweek. Something is moving this calendar.

Swanston does not. Its lead time relationship disappears under the same controls, and its weekend premium runs backwards: short stays arriving Friday or Saturday earn A$147 against A$193 midweek. Two listings on one contract with one agent should not behave this differently.

Coventry: longer stays earn a little less, a rank correlation of −0.23. Stays under 20 nights run at a median of A$113, against A$100 across the seven stays of 20 nights or more, which range from A$91 to A$174. Event night floors in the pricing framework now apply to every booking, so a long stay across an event is priced at the floor on those nights.

The longest stay was the best one. Booking 8182, 86 nights, earned A$173.60 a night, the highest of the long stays and above the rest of the year. The weak long stays are all winter: 31 to 41 nights at A$91 to A$100 between May and August. Booking 13192 is a cancellation payout on the same nights as 8182 rather than a separate let, so it is out of this chart.

What is left is a season problem. From May to August, long stays earn A$102 against A$97 for short ones, so length costs nothing in the quiet months. Across the rest of the year they earn A$116 against A$140, about a sixth less. Long bookings are taken at much the same number whichever month they land in, which is what the event night floors exist to stop.

Swanston: no long stay problem, a rank correlation of −0.09, with one stay of 21 nights at A$135. It has no stay over 28 nights at all, and its 7 to 27 night stays earn A$183 against A$146 for its short ones, so there is no exposure here to manage.

Coventry. The Grand Prix earned A$539 against a rest of year rate of A$103, more than five times. Christmas and New Year earned 45% more and Easter 33% more.

The Australian Open is where January went: 8 of 21 nights sold, at A$155 on the nights it did sell.

⚑ STL-12 Melbourne Cup Carnival earned only 16% more despite selling 7 of 8 nights, and the October racing weekends earned A$97, below the rest of year rate.

Swanston. The Grand Prix earned A$681 against a rest of year rate of A$174, close to four times. Christmas and New Year earned 76% more and it sold 17 of 21 Australian Open nights at A$244.

The October racing weekends are the weak spot, 2 of 6 nights at A$140, below the rest of year rate.

Two of the three comparables were withdrawn on 8 September because they sit in a higher bracket with gym, sauna and cinema facilities Coventry does not have. The Letting Agent will rebuild the set around Southbank 1 bedroom, sleeps 2 apartments of comparable building and quality, with no assumption of gym or sauna.

⚑ STL-05 The rebuilt listings have not yet been shared, so Coventry is still priced against 5.0 rated apartments with gym, sauna and cinema, which is where its Airbnb value score of 4.4 comes from. Until they are named, the six event rate floors, A$100 to A$370, cannot be checked against comparable Southbank apartments.

The comparables with the deepest review history lead with a named view and premium furnishing brands, where Coventry's description gives its balcony view a single line.

All three comparables out-rate Swanston, including the one with no pool or gym, which leads on review volume. The closest match, the Lighthouse listing, has the same facilities plus spa and sauna and scores 4.9 for check-in against Swanston's 4.3, which points to arrival execution rather than facilities.

⚑ STL-06 Check-in is the gap to close, and it is the car park and three building arrival already tracked.

Owner operating costs were A$541.20 for safety compliance checks on 25 May 2026. A further A$295.90 for smoke alarm rectification was outstanding at year end and settled on the July 2026 statement, so it lands in FY2026/27. Including the A$541.20, Coventry's charges were 21.9% of gross.

The year's income includes a A$1,631.15 payout for a cancelled booking. Commission of A$244.67 was charged on it at the same 15.0%, shown among the expenses rather than in the fee column, which is why the commission here exceeds the fee subtotal on the annual statement. Trading gross from stays was A$24,459.66.

Commission alone is 91% of Swanston's operating charges, with nothing unpaid at year end.