Apartment fees of 30pc blasted

Enormous growth in the resort town's apartment market meant some developers now needed to seriously look at lowering the percentage take for the management of the apartments, Mr White said.

For years developers in Queenstown had been on-selling the management contract of their apartments for 30 percent.

"Then you get the cleaning of the apartment, laundry fees and other fees loaded on top of that – doesn't leave the owner much for their investment.

"There have been too many greedy developers. They will have to lower the fee structure or be driven out of town," Mr White said.

New apartment developers had been more realistic and set the management take at between 12 and 20 percent. The Rees (SMG Properties), a $90 million top-of-the-range 68 apartment block, launched this month, had set the management fee of the apartments at 20 percent.

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