After 30 years in real estate and financial services in Australia, raised-in-Canada Savannah Jackson moved to Queenstown in 2018 to retire after selling her last business.

However, on turning 50 in 2022 and being bored, “I thought, ‘let’s do something’”, so the next year she started building a property management company.

Three years on, her and partner Aisline ‘Ash’ Smyth’s Hello Queenstown is the resort’s largest single-brand holiday rental property management company.

They have 175 properties under management — either houses or townhouses/units within complexes.

These include the management rights on Frankton Rd’s 18-unit Villa del Lago, and eight directly-owned properties.

“We’ve got about $200 million worth real estate we manage,” Jackson says.

Hello Queenstown’s also spawned cleaning company Fresh’N’Bright — “we used to outsource our cleaning and we weren’t happy with the results and so we said, ‘we’ll take it inhouse and do it ourselves’”.

Now, they’ve taken the bold step of developing 200-plus units across four complexes which they’ll mostly sell off and of course end up managing themselves.
“We’ll have over 400-plus properties under management once we finish our developments within three and a-half, four years.”

Their complexes are in Fernhill’s Lochy Rd, central Queenstown’s Anderson Heights, one opposite the marina and on 10 sites at exclusive Karamata Peak on the top of Queenstown Hill.

“It’s very difficult to buy new development sites,” Jackson says.

Two years ago, Hello Queenstown also opened an ‘airline lounge’ for their property management guests on the Shotover St/Camp St corner.

“This office has been like a fire hose of business for us, it gives us a lot of connection with other operators, whether it’s real estate agents or other managers, I mean, we are the most visible property management company in town.”

Jackson says “we aim to be not just the largest but also the best in terms of the standard and the service”.

“That’s why we have so many staff” — 26 directly and about 45 in their cleaning company.

“We have the cleaners come in and we then have a layer of supervisors come and check the property.

“You also have to have the infrastructure in place to be able to service people 24 hours a day because we’ll have guests who arrive at 11pm who can’t find the front door and we have to be available to them.”

Jackson says their industry runs on reviews — “over 96% of our reviews are five-star reviews”.

And if because of their quality they can charge guests more, they’re happy and so are their owners.

They have about 16 booking channels — Airbnb and Booking.com account for just over half — plus their own website and repeat customers.

As to where their guests are from, 43% are from Asia/India, 28% from Australia, though that’s higher in the ski season, 11% from North America and 5 to 10% Kiwis.

Jackson says their business has grown “bigger than I ever necessarily envisaged it initially”.

“But, since we got going, my ambition has grown.

“I’ve always had this attitude of, bite off more than you can chew, and chew like hell.

“I’m still only 53, so I’ve got a long time to still play, right?”