Perisher's Marritz Hotel and Salzburg apartments for sale at time of 'insatiable' demand for alpine property

The listings come hot on the heels of a record-breaking sale in Mount Buller, where a five-bedroom apartment sold for a rumoured $7 million.

“There is no doubt that COVID has been good to property, very good to regional property and even better to alpine property,” said Castran managing director John Castran, appointed to sell the properties alongside Colliers’ Gus Moors and Guy Wells.

Mr Castran, who specialises in alpine property, said there was an “insatiable” demand for holiday accommodation in the snow. “I’ve been in the game for 40 years, and there has never been more real estate sold in alpine areas,” he said.

The Marritz Hotel, a popular holiday spot for the who’s who of Sydney, was built in the 1960s in a European style that has been meticulously maintained over the years.

Such is the wealth of its well-heeled clientele that, in years gone by, guests would apparently throw all of their car keys into a bowl, and the owner of the keys plucked first would foot the entire food and beverage bill of all the hotel guests for that week.

While the Marritz is expected to appeal to hotel operators, investors and ski clubs, it could also be snapped up by an affluent family and turned into a private holiday home.

“We’ve got very, very high-net-worth individuals that are looking to buy the Marritz for their whole family,” Mr Castran said.

The fully operational hotel, which runs from mid-June to mid-September, is being offered with vacant possession or with an ongoing management structure in place.  With more than 70 beds over three levels, the hotel also houses Perisher’s only indoor heated pool, a restaurant, apres-ski bar and a children’s play area.

Mr Moors said the listing was a unique opportunity to acquire a stand-alone hotel building with a true apres-ski offering and extensive staff accommodation.

“Benefitting from being the closest alpine resort to Australia’s most populous city and easily accessible from Canberra, the Marritz Hotel is due to benefit from a domestic tourism rebound,” Mr Moors said.

The Salzburg apartments, a range of split-level units with a jacuzzi or spa, have been operated in conjunction with the hotel but are being sold separately in what the listing agents say is a rare opportunity to buy private apartments in Perisher.

“With strong demand across the Victorian and New South Wales alpine area in the past 24 months, the Salzburg Apartments are the first significant offering of apartments in Perisher in a number of years,” Mr Castran said. 

The price of a two-bedroom apartment will start at $800,000 while three-bedroom apartments are expected to sell for more than $1.2 million each.

The apartments could sell individually or as a collection, with large employers on the ski fields likely to be interested.

Mr Castran said staff accommodation had proven difficult for employers to navigate since the introduction of social distancing. “Where you might have been able to put four people into a room, now it’s two people,” he said. “Because of COVID, you need double the space.”

This winter was shaping up to be a bumper snow season with plenty of pent-up demand resulting in waiting lists for accomodation across the country’s most popular mountains. But as massive dumps of snow fall across the alpine regions this week, chair lifts in Victoria have ground to a halt while thousands of bookings have been cancelled in NSW due to the latest round of lockdowns.

With some hotels and lodges sitting empty in what should have been the peak holiday period, accommodation providers and business owners are seeking rent relief and government financial assistance packages.

“There are a lot of operators that it’s fair to say are undercapitalised,” Mr Castran said. “They came off a bad year last year.

“There’s also another big group of people who are opportunistic and see it as a good time to buy.”