Transcript of “Hobart Ferry Trial”

Episode:
EP91
Show Title:
Hobart Ferry Trial
Cast:
Aaron Horne, Patrick Berry, & John McGregor
Show Length:
24 minutes 44 seconds

Patrick: Exactly! Just use the things you have, people, which already exist. [laughter]

John: Yeah, that's the whole plan for the next city: use what you got! [laughter]

[intro music]
Going once... going twice... SOLD! You're listening to The Property Pod!

Aaron: All right, gang. It's your rough and tumble, ready to roll, MKH Contracting-sponsored podcast, The Property Pod. I'm your host, Aaron Horne and I'm joined, as always, by MKH Contracting-wearing superstar, Patrick Berry.

Patrick: Hey, everyone! How's it going?

Aaron: And I don't know if John got the memo, but John is also wearing some contracting gear today…

John: Unfortunately, I didn't have any MKH gear because I'm still waiting for my MKH Contracting gear.

Patrick: Don't worry, it'll be in the mail.

John: I'm looking forward to getting my MKH Contracting gear... [laughter]

Aaron: I feel like the dream is you start a podcast and all you want is somebody out there to listen be like, "jeez, I wish they'd talk about me on that podcast"

Patrick: Yeah yeah!

Aaron: "I'm gonna send them some stuff." [laughter]

Patrick: And if you do…

John: MKH Contracting... we we wear it [laughter]
John: All I could think of is that scene from Wayne's World where he's wearing the full Reebok and he's going, "it's like people only do things because they get paid and that's really sad, you know" [laughter]

Aaron: Totally agree, but shout out to Pat's good mates at MKH Contracting! They have provided us with some very very nice attire here...they also do a really good job at moving dirt [laughter] and what they do, but they also make some nice clothes [laughter]

John: As it turns out…

Aaron: So, Pat, tell us all about the sponsorship you've got us.

Patrick: Oh well, so far I've hooked us up with one hoodie and one t-shirt...you know, we're really rising up here at The Property Pod, so I'm pumped about that…

John: I don't get anything that's a good start, as far as I'm concerned.

Patrick: Well, I'll just share my mine then... [laughter]

Aaron: The tricky bit is for everyone out there listening, if you heard last week, Pat mentioned his friends, Marcus and Kirsten, they like to listen to us as they go to sleep. So, we said, "Oh, maybe we're boring and we don't keep them interested." But now they're gonna be so interested they won't be able to sleep; they'll be jumping up in bed just thinking like, "yes, we're famous for all their listeners!" [laughter]

Patrick: All 35…

Aaron: No, look... I'll shout out that Sam last week on the show, all his people out there in his greater world, our show went gangbusters out there…

Patrick: I'll tell you what it did all the way up to Bernie, I saw we had comments from people up there and like man, Sam has got some serious connections out there. So exciting to see what he can do.

Aaron: Yeah no, it was a really really good episode with Sam talking on the show last week and it was really really well received from a few people reaching out and saying, "fix up his hair"

John: Yeah! [laughter]

Aaron: We will work on that as we get deeper into his 4one4 career.

Patrick: Well, no doubt. He'll be listening to this week's episode while he's up at Derby riding down the trails, probably have those headphones in and just…

John: I could just imagine, maybe we've got a six months, you know... a six month hair update.

Patrick: I want to know how he keeps that hair so good under that helmet of his…

Aaron: Well, can I say I don't know he'll listen to this and I want to see if he comes back, but can I say as I was editing the podcast together, he had this real Harvey Specter kind of look about him, you know, suits the TV show. You guys watch that?

John: Yeah yeah...

Aaron: Yeah, I just like... if you catch him in the right angle, I think there's a little Harvey Specter going on there so hopefully, he's good at wheeling his deal…

Patrick: I was gonna say, Harvey gets the job done so, you know, fingers crossed he has the same traits. [laughter]

Aaron: Indeed. All right, enough banter for this morning, let's jump straight into some of our show. We're planning to talk a bit about the community of Tasmania at the moment. I thought we'd cover off on the Ferry, the latest trial there, talk a little bit about the weather that came in and did a bit of damage, and then I think talk about Kingston and the pool down there. Ariane Titmus got us all excited about swimming here in Tassie, so we could cover up on a few of those topics.

John: And if we've got time to the...

Patrick: I have no time for whatever topic you're bringing up... [laughter]

John: Well, it's the real estate specific one ... [laughter]

Patrick: Baby, you know we don't have time, we don't have time. What are you gonna do?

Aaron: Here's what it is... we're construction boys now. [the two agree]

Patrick: We just know about diggers, excavators, and bobcats.

John: I can see some waterproofing still stuck on these pants. [laughter]

John: I know what I'm doing... [laughter]

Aaron: Yeah, baby. [laughter]

Aaron: So, first thing I wanted to cover off today... we'll get to the real estate stuff, John. Thank you for bringing that up, but um…

John: Okay, I like the idea of talking about the weather, that's lovely... [laughter]
Aaron: Well, no. This is kind of cool…

John: That's the sky today, boys [laughter]

Aaron: Well, look. Let's jump into this.

Patrick: Look, we've got episode 80 something, we've run out of content... [laughter]

Aaron: That's stuck thinking we're living in the 80s. We're in the 90s, mate. This is episode 91.

Patrick: Oh really?

Aaron: Yeah, I told you this last week.

Patrick: I told you we'd never make 100.

Aaron: Well, we're fast getting there, but we are talking about the weather so perhaps, it's all over. We did get a sponsor on episode 91 though, so…

Patrick: Wooh! MKH Contracting! [laughter]

Aaron: So I want to talk about the new Ferry so it is kind of real estate-related because we're talking about the city; we're talking about how they're trying to get people off the roads and they're trying to bring kind of a new travel corridor. We've talked about the travel corridor of perhaps, a train running from the northern suburbs into the city. This is a ferry, so this is the ferry system that started up on the 9th of August. It is in a one-year trial period and it seems to be going pretty well.

Patrick: Well, when they first start these initiatives, everyone wants to have a go, don't they?

Aaron: Yeah, exactly.

Patrick: You can see how it goes in six months time…

Aaron: Ah so you feel like they're just sticky baking at the moment and in six months, well the funny thing is it's winter so you think this would be the time you wouldn't want to be on the water, but people are out there giving it a go.

Patrick: Well, bikes have become popular and I think you can ride for free at the moment if you've got a bike.

Aaron: Yes, I think there's like 15 spaces for bikes on each or on the ferry. It can take up to 107 passengers. It leaves Bellerive and comes across to Princess Wharf and I think there's like 15 crossings a day, kind of seven in the morning and eight at night or something like that...

Patrick: Is it talking to Brook Street Pier or is it talking elsewhere? Do we know that or we don't?

Aaron: I don't think I have those details here. If you have been on it and you want to give us a review and let us know how it was and where it does stop, I'd say that would be...

Patrick: It'd be dangerous for me, like because you know, you've got the bar and all the whiskies upstairs. Like every night, get off work, wait a more ferry to come in the morning, have a hot toddy on the way... [laughter] There's some good stuff in that Brooke Street Pier.

John: Well, it looks like I'll be catching the ferry and I don't even live on the eastern shore.

Aaron: Well, look. Here's the good point of that: if you guys want to do that and partake in that, you've got the ferry that takes you to where you need to be. You're off the road, you're not drunk driving, so it's another safe way of using some of Hobart's local eateries and hospitality venues, you get to use them.

Patrick: Exactly!

Aaron: It's good to get on the ferry if you live in Bellerive Pier, boom,bob's your uncle!

Patrick: Well, I think it's good like it's good seeing activity on the water, like you've got the Moonah Ferry going up and down constantly, now you've got this going across and back…

Aaron: It just seems like a no-brainer if you think about Sydney with the Manly Ferries and all that kind of stuff, like that's kind of part of the culture or the…

Patrick: How good would a Kingston Hobart be like? There's no reason why I can't put something down there in Kingston beach just you know, I don't know how this stuff works but it'd be cool.

John: And this makes me sound cooler than I am, but even like when I was in Vancouver, they had the big ferry that went across the two, across the river that splits between them as well [Aaron agrees] and there's heaps of people using that constantly.

Aaron: So I wonder if this is just one of those things where it needs to get into the people's minds and be like, "oh, this is actually a good idea." I know there's a bit of argument back and forth at the start, so guys, it's not going to take off that much time like really in your transit sort of thing, but it is a way of getting cars off the road, it's a way of you're not paying for your parking each day, like that's a really expensive cost, so if you can and look... I really like sitting down and doing nothing, not having to concentrate on the traffic and just being like, "Sweet! I've got 15 minutes to sit here, do my thing, catch up with some people." I think there's actually bar facilities on the ferry.

Patrick: Yeah, there is. Yeah, it's a little canteen and bar on board.

Aaron: There you go! So it might not be the posh bit of MONA but it might come one day.

John: Yeah, and I think any way in which they try and this it's a slow building for Hobart but where they can continue to develop these alternative ways of getting to and from home is brilliant. You know, the water hopefully, you know, trains down the road, buses, cars, and everything. And I mean, realistically, if you think about on an average with people filling up a car, it's one or two people. It's rare that you've got four people driving into the city. It's always usually just for yourself, so you think about every road taking probably at least 50 cars off the road in every trip.

Patrick: Well, everyone's complaining about the traffic in the morning these days. Oh Hobart's not what it used to be. There's too many cars on the road--flat stick busy. I'm like, well there's options out there by the sound of it and maybe some people need to give it a go.

Aaron: Yeah, I've read further into our show notes and it does board at the Brooke Street Pier, so that's where you get on, so you can have your hot toddies, you can have your whiskey, you can do whatever you like--

Patrick: Get a nice coffee upstairs and from the guys before you walk out the door...

Aaron: Yeah, exactly. So then, it says here that payment is via your metro green card, so it's set up with metro the bus service, so if you've got the ability to use that you've got the ability to get onto the Ferry--$3.50, three hundred…

Patrick: Three hundred fifty dollars? [laughter]

John: Includes a hot toddy [laughter]

Aaron: $3.50 for an adult, $2.40 for a concession, and a $1.80 trial for students, so really quite an affordable way if you're taking that out of your weekly budget. If you're doing that a few times over, it's going to be way cheaper than having to find a car park parked for the whole day. I know car parking prices went up recently in Hobart city.

Patrick: I think the only thing that could break it down at this point in the trial in my thoughts is that fantastic, if you live in the Bellerive Pier area like boom! On the ferry, across your go, you're done. But if you've got to commute through there to catch the ferry, then what's the advantage versus commuting to town via bus or car [Aaron agrees] and where do you put your car? I was gonna get to the ferry like…

Aaron: The one thing seems to be the parking there at Bellerive, so you've gotta go to set up a place to park for everybody that is going to catch the ferry because otherwise it's a bit of a moot point.
Patrick: I think to make it successful, you need to have almost like a free parking garage there that holds a couple of thousand cars that it's exclusively for people that are using the ferry service. So yeah, I think that's where the the [ __ ] might come as far as it not been as potentially successful as it could be.

John: Yeah, always. And I guess, hopefully, maybe in this trial period will be seen what the uptake is and the excitement of actually catching it and then if it continues... yeah then you got numbers, it was like okay, now there's a justification.

Patrick: Like you've got Lindisfarne, that'd be another great spot for one gasp, what a great spot gasp would be, they've got that out there that could be a giant car park, put a ferry there and just travel into town.

Aaron: Actually that's really clever because like you literally get out to that end of gasp, but it feels like, "oh, this is the spot I meant to jump on a boat," [the two agrees]

Patrick: It's already got the dock there..

Aaron: Yeah, and a massive car park there at the MyState Arena Stadium.

Patrick: Yeah, so like plus, it's got all that big area at the back that's undeveloped yet like…

Aaron: Like we should be in Council…

Patrick: We should be doing... What are we doing?

Aaron: Get out there and try again…

John: Where's that Greater Glenorchy Plan? We only need two pages, not 100. [laughter]

Patrick: Exactly! Just use the things you have, people, which already exist. [laughter]

John: Yeah, that's the whole plan for the next city: use what you got! [laughter]

Patrick: Anyway, looks like a good idea; be interesting to see where it goes.

Aaron: The only reason I wanted to bring up weather in today's show was also…

Patrick: ...that you needed [ __ ]

Aaron: No, well I thought we'd get to the point where being on the river can be really quite cold and if that might be a deterrent as well, I know it's an enclosed ferry, but I thought being on the river could be quite cold especially this morning. Did you guys clock that photo of the guy walking along Bellerive beach with the snow up on Mount Wellington?
Patrick: No, I could imagine it.

Aaron: Amazing. I'll see if I can find it, I'll plug it into the show notes but yeah, essentially, it was kind of like imagining walking along this beach which is normally sunny and beautiful but it was really moody, so snow fell down like 400 meters.

Patrick: It was low...

Aaron: It was low like yeah, it was so weird at the end of winter but it fell so low because it really...

Patrick: What was weird was a Monday a week ago, a beautiful sunny day wearing a t-shirt. Monday, seven days later, and the snow's all the way down the mountain.

Aaron: Well, even the following day, you were sitting in the office here saying, "geez, I feel like I need my shorts" like it's so different from yesterday.

John: Well, someone told me the white address and Tassie's layers, so you know, because it's cold if it was named after a hotel, it's going to be the four seasons because it's just cold, wet, hot, soggy, and then oh then it goes up one and then in the later half of the afternoon, you just dress up, you know, take all those layers off and then put them all back on again.

Aaron: Straight up Scotland, baby!

John: 100 percent, yeah! [laughter]

Patrick: You're born [ __ ]

Aaron: Yeah right. [laughter]

Patrick: Just give us some practical advice

Patrick: We all now know how to wear a coat... [laughter] yes

John: Well, I mean

Aaron: I've got no fur coat, well MKH Contracting t-shirt and coat

John: Sponsored by... [laughter]

John: Actually, every time we announce, well that's the weather now, MKH got drinking, brought to you by...

Aaron: It is like on the footy where... [laughter]

Patrick: Brought to you by... [laughter]

John: Yeah, it's surprising I don't have a paid gigging radio.

Patrick: You're going somewhere with this story though and we've just stolen from it.

John: When one of the things he was talking about, there was one of the meteorologists who was commenting on the damaging elements of it as well,

Aaron: Yeah, so that's kind of where I wanted to go into like I know you've contacted me two or three times about signs falling over so it's just one of those really tricky times when a massive cold front like this comes through like we are right at the bottom of the world so when those roaring forties come up from Antarctica sort of thing, they can really put a massive massive impact on homeowners and people who are renting. I know wild weather comes in and you'll often get phone calls, this is something that's happened...

Patrick: Yeah, well we lost a roof on Sunday from the wind so we had to contact SES to go out and protect the building for us, [Aaron agrees] yeah, it gets pretty crazy there at times.

John: God, I mean, because we've got 800 plus rental properties and I remember when we had our bodies corporate management, we were looking after overseeing about 11,000 different units and complexes and I remember developing phone anxiety during storms because I knew that the second that there was going to be kicking my phone would be ringing hot like all night... yeah yeah exactly, and just for all the wrong reasons I'm like, "oh no."

Aaron: Well yeah, but the crazy thing with that situation is you're sitting there and you're getting the anxiety of, "oh crap, my phone's going to ring," but you got to think of the person on the other end of the phone. They're sitting there thinking, "oh crap, my house is going to blow away or the roof's going to come off or this tree is going to fall on me," so yeah it is anxiety-inducing with all of this stuff so it's just another layer of property management and looking after tenants and rental...

Patrick: And the hard thing is there's not a lot we can do when the storms actually happen because you can't seem to trade up under the roof in a storm. It's blowing gail out there but can you go get a big giant sheet of tin and carry it up under the roof to secure that bit... [laughter] like and that's really hard because tenants don't understand that. They're like, "What do you mean? Someone can't come and fix my roof." I'm like, "well, I can't put someone else's safety at danger because a bit of the roof's come off."

John: Yeah, you just gotta grin and bear it.

Patrick: Yeah, we'll have to wait until the storm passes and then we can look at getting a trade out to repair it.

John: But wasn't that another thing with when we're talking about the report about the most livable cities and the most desirable areas, wasn't it that case where Tasmania even though, obviously, we are going to suffer extremes but it's on a lesser scale versus many different elements in the world yeah like giant you know…

Patrick: The storm here is not as bad as a storm in front of Queensland like...

Aaron: Oh yeah no, we're cruising like a... yes, it is scary when they're coming through and it wasn't like detrimental with it your sign fell over [laughter] and you were like, "Oh my god! They're not gonna know it's for sale."

John: Yeah yeah, exactly. Well, it had the soul sticker on so I don't know the results...

Aaron: "They don't know how well I am" [laughter]

John: Quick, get off the road. [laughter] Well, at any end, it's just another subtle plug for Tassie.

Aaron: Yeah no, look. We're look it's one of those crazy things where the weather can be wild
down here but we also can live in a really safe and hospitable place.

John: Which is probably not a bad segue in the idea then of the report that they're wanting to put pressure on the availability of Airbnb properties..
.
Patrick: Oh he wants to get he's keen to give this book.

Aaron: Let him get it out there. He doesn't want to talk about Kingston.

John: I don't know. It seemed like a better segue than a pool, all right? I'm just putting it out there.

Aaron: Right, just because you're Scottish, you don't like swimming. [laughter]

Patrick: All right, what do you got about Airbnb?

John: This is from a report which the university had released where they're making some recommendations on controlling the Airbnb market and then through that proposal, with that research they're proposing some series of changes to be made, so that's going to hopefully, have an adverse effect or will affect the Airbnb market with the idea hoping that it's going to free up some stock for the general rental area. But one of the things I thought about was that I ended up having a little bit of a deep dive into the report itself because...

Aaron: That's why he wants to talk about it because he actually read up this info.

John: Well, I read the summary, yeah. [laughter]

John: I'm gonna probably forget the course.

Patrick: So, it was a 500-page report and you read the paragraph at the top...

John: These guys have been doing an enormous amount of research now to sit there and pretend like I'm the expert for five minutes.

Patrick: It's like me when I'm wanting to buy a new product and I go to review the product and I scroll past five pages of info to get to the summary. [laughter]

Aaron: All right, John. Hit us with everything you know about this…

John: Oh geez! [laughter] Let's have you guys, you have the show notes as well.

Patrick: We wanted to talk about the Kingston pool where you brought this up.

John: Fair point, fair point. Dug myself with the hell there, um... not a pool... but they had [Aaron: nice] well it said that there's about seven thousand so the Hobart LGA, so the Local Government Authority, they've got... there's about seven thousand rental properties and of that, about six percent has been lost to the Airbnb market which was about like full property where it once would have been... might have been a rental property, but now, the whole house is used exclusively for Airbnb-- not partially let as in, you know, the owners still living there and rents out the room from time to time--the whole house. So that was about 500--well four to 600 properties for Hobart. So about six percent of the total rental properties available and when I suppose what I was curious about this then is that they're saying that they want to put restrictions on Airbnb to try and limit that market, but what they're really talking about is 600 properties in effect and I might not be doing it justice, but the other thing that report went into is that we are already, you know, Hobart of loans down by like 3 000 homes behind just for both renters and new buyers.

Patrick: So the Airbnb market isn't a mass; it isn't going to fix the problem is what…

John: Yeah

Patrick: Everyone blames the Airbnb marketplace, but you're saying it's not going to fix the issue.

John: Yeah, it seems to me that if you're looking at that 80-20 rule, what's going to bring the biggest result is that the idea being that they put constraints around the Airbnb market hoping that it might free up another 100 properties is not going to have a real...

Aaron: It's like putting a band-aid on a broken leg kind of thing.

John: Yeah, absolutely! And so the proposals that they looked to showcase was they wanted to set up a whole new government section dedicated to forecasting the future of housing for the Airbnb market--that's not exactly right so forgive me. But then, they would say there'd be additional taxes; they would put permits on limiting the amount within specific areas based on, you know, and then also having additional planning requirements relating to zoning.

Patrick: Okay, correct me if I'm wrong, but did the Airbnb market in Hobart really take off though because there was a lack of actual hotel rooms available... like I used to work in the hotel industry and a big weekend would be like an event was on in town, every hotel was fully booked out every single day, so that was a clear indication that there weren't enough houses for the amount of people that were coming down. [Aaron agrees] So there's been a huge amount of new hotels built in Hobart recently and there's still another two or three to open in the coming years that will ease pressure on people like you know, the Airbnb market exists because there's good money in it at the moment. There's more hotel rooms available and it's affordable to go to a newer hotel. What's the advantage like you're going to go to a hotel in the center of town versus an Airbnb out in the middle of North Hobart, so would that as well then limit the amount of Airbnbs if there's not as much profit?

John: Well, I mean I was in chatting with different clients along the way who have had those properties available went back into the... go back into the rental market when it's just the short-term accommodation doesn't make sense for them financially, so it seems to me, too, when you think about when I've traveled and there's a group of six people, you can stay longer in an area because you can hire a house and use that entire space rather than all of you getting six individual rooms, all paying four times as much as you have to to stay in that area for longer.

Aaron: Yeah, it's a really tricky one I know where we're talking about wedding in Townsville starting next year and rather than kind of be like, "oh, let's all book these things we're thinking or we'll look into a eight-person house," so I guess yeah, I'm a really bad one to talk about this because I'm all for Airbnb.

Patrick: Oh, it's great and I've used it heaps when we've traveled overseas…

John: ...and I think when, oh sorry, drop me…

Patrick: No, I understand totally where you're coming from. Yeah because when there's a bigger group of you, then you can get the cost of the thing down and it makes perfect sense.

John: Well it struck me, I hope I am correct in interpreting the report. When it said that in the end, it's taken about six percent out of the rental market, so it's six percent. If it was if Airbnb had taken 50 percent of available properties out of the rent, you'd be like, "oh, this is a problem. There's a real big deal here." But the idea being that right let's just say, the regulation in a good sense enables a 20% difference so that's taken away and you know, that's freed up maybe 100 or 200 properties that's not even anywhere close to what the own report says is the biggest issue which is the lack of available housing.
Aaron: So it's kind of like, let's just throw some mud at something else and try and get it to stick to that rather than actually deal with the real problem or we don't have an answer for the real problem at the moment, so we'll just keep playing shadow games pushing it around.

John: Yeah, it's just like, you could have a whole another government section; you could do all these requirements. In the end, it generates more taxes for the people who are using the Airbnb market and at the same token, too, would have like there's not even a slither of an effect on the actual greater problem.

Patrick: We've talked about it before like I think that people like to use Airbnb as the excuse why the Hobart rental marketplace is stuffed. Like everyone says, "oh, it's just that the airbnb is what stuffed it over," but at the end of the day, it's lack of development and lack of future development opportunities. [John agrees] Medium density, like being able to build multiple properties on one location, all of those things to help create opportunities for more housing to handle the amount of people coming back, but then the argument is there's too many people here so then we need more transit opportunities so there's a huge amount of problems that need to be sort of worked out and they all compound on each other.

Aaron: They sure do and what an amazing show that we've put together where we've covered all of those issues…

John: That's what I'm talking about.

Aaron: Well-played to us and the weather as well.

Patrick: Yeah yeah, and I'm pretty sure 'sponsored by MKH the weather' was.

John: And people do need to have a swim on occasion but it's a shame we ran out of time. [laughter]

Patrick: He's not going to let us go on about the pool. We're done!

Aaron: The pool is out!

John: Oh have we've got have time?

Aaron: No

Patrick: You've got it!

John: We got it, we called it alright.

Aaron: That was excellent, boys. Thank you to the crew at MKH Contracting for having a bit of fun with us and throwing us some of their gear. They do really really good work here. If they're still awake, Marcus and Kristen, shout out to you, guys, for being a supporter of The Property Pod and 4one4 Property Co.! Much appreciated and we will talk to everybody next week on next week's episode of The Property Pod, sponsored by Apple. [laughter]

Patrick: The fruit.

Aaron: The fruit.

John: No specific ties to any…

Aaron: All right, guys. We'll talk to you next week. See you!

[extro and disclaimer]
You have been listening to The Property Pod, recorded and edited by 4one4 Media House in conjunction with 4one4 Property Co. This podcast is general information only and the thoughts and views expressed are the opinion of our panel and listeners should always seek to use their own investigation into any topic we discussed to ensure they fully understand their own situation. It does not constitute and should not be relied on as purchasing, selling, financial, or investment advice or recommendations, expressed or implied, and it should not be used as an invitation to take up any agent or investment services. No investment decision or activity should be undertaken on the basis of this information without first seeking qualified and professional advice.