Sylvie & jc

3 days ago7 min read

Blog Dia 49: Time Again

Place your bets! It's time for another spin.

We are now on our way toward season 8 at Monte-Bougainvillea. It's sort of unexpected as we put Monte-Bougainvillea on the market over a year ago. We knew it might take some time but we were not sure if this meant a long time or not. Time flies so fast we can't really say it's all that long, we didn't really have much time to check. But being here at this time does mean we have to keep things up to date. The web site, listings, documents, invoicing, pricing, policies, and a lot of MS-Excel links, formulas and charts, all need to be updated. This does drive home the passage of time. A turning of the page, as regular and consistent as the rotating needles on the dial, yet every midnight tells a different story, like a rigged roulette wheel pretending to be a clock.

As we do every year, we use the opportunity to look back and share the story of how the ball rolled, this time.

2024 was, like the 6 years prior, a surprise in terms of how blessed we are to attract quality guests. Year after year since our very start, people have left us wonderful messages in our guests' books. These books now span 7 years and stack 20cm thick. A lot of guests become friends along the way. We put a lot of effort in what we do yet each year we can't help but be honored by the feedback. We score 4.9 out of 5 on Google and we're at 9.7 out of 10 on Booking.com giving us a rating of 'exceptional' every year since 2018. Now having said this, it is no irony that our last guests gave us a 5 on Booking.com.

We get that about once or twice a year on average. Some people are just not at the right place and there is not much we can do when it is more about them than about us, or the other guests that complained about them. So all in all, we are grateful for the vast majority of our guests, which is a happy place to be. Thank you all very much.

2024 was, like the 2 years prior, a surprise in terms of results. It turned out pretty much the same as the second best year ever, last year, behind only the year prior. So we have our second best year ever for the second year in a row. This can be dizzying to read I suppose, but quite nice to realise considering we had/ have other plans that include retirement. A question of time also surprisingly shows up in the results in that we had a little less 'high season' bookings than 2023 but a lot more 'low season' bookings. So we have the same result but from different times spread more evenly throughout the year. Also good to know we could easily do better next year, while we are at it, as we are, so to speak, next year, as I write.

Speaking of history, we can say, historically speaking, we get roughly 50% of bookings direct or on our website, 45% from Booking.com and 1 or 2 bookings from VRBO. But in 2024 we stopped our car & transfer service for weekly stays and we lowered our prices accordingly. This in turn has driven up bookings from Booking.com for shorter stays and lowered the incentive to book direct, so the trend is going towards Booking.com taking back the lead and maybe changing history in the future.

80% of our bookings come from 7-8 countries. The top 3 have remained very consistent throughout the years: France, Luxembourg, Germany. During 2024 however, France and Luxembourg continued downward trends while Netherlands (6th) showed accelerated growth for the 4th year, balancing out total bookings and total revenues to almost the same as 2023. What's odd is that visits to our website do not reflect this at all. Portuguese, Canadians, and Americans are the top one ones who visit our site, now seen by people of 82 countries. Not clear if this is a surprise or a disappointment that we do not get bookings to match the clicks from these people. Or we can rationalise that a lot are europeans hiding behind american VPNs?

2024 was our best year in terms of cancellations, meaning we did not get many cancelled bookings although we did see an uptick starting October, when we stopped the cars, unsurprisingly (still 2 left to sell btw). Another best for 2024 is our handle on discounts, the difference between our plans, our prices and what really get paid at the end. It was no surprise, to me anyway, to see this is because of better handling of prices on Booking.com (read 'much higher', then book with us direct on www.monte-bougainvillea.com, then finish reading this text. We'll leave three dots here while we wait for you to come back...).

2024 was a normal year in terms of politics for us in Portugal, and by normal we mean constant change. We've gotten used to how quick things change and come to appreciate most of the quirks are just an odd kind of pragmatism. But this aspect of our lives running an Alojamento Local (AL) business spun like slot machines until we hit the jackpot of AL regulation. Post-Covid, the government had been targeting AL like every single one was an investment fund/ foreigner owned AirB&B key box operation. New rules, new regulations, an end date on our license, new taxes, new fees, new restrictions. Then the Portuguese people voted in a new government! The surprise is that this new government cancelled everything of the old government and even added cherries on top to make our AL license illimited and transferable. This is a really cool 180 degree turn of legislation in as many days and couldn't be timelier as we are looking for a buyer who would also realise the value of this fact and the fact that I wrote this here for said potential buyer to read.

Our apartments are not even listed on AirB&B since years. We are not convinced of the concept despite its great success, and we never got bookings. The social costs are bewildering. But we are in a happy place, where even the old government agreed we were not part of the problem but the definition of what a real AL should be. We live here, we share the property, our home, as a business tailored to a quality tourist experience. As it happens, this was the plan, the targeted lifestyle, our solution to not retiring at 50 but already enjoying its benefits on the way to 60. We created 2 jobs, ours. We work and live in a villa, ours, but now it's time to retire, so it could be yours.

At it's end, 2024 confirmed our propositions in terms of holiday rental for our guests and by doing so, also in terms of business opportunity & life style for our buyer, eventually.

Monte-Bougainvillea is an ideal spot for your holidays in the Algarve. The villa, the pool, the intimacy, the discretion, the quality of service and the centralised location make it the perfect base from which to visit the Algarve east to west, or west to east or both. Exclusivity and calm assured with only 5 independant guest apartments sharing the large idyllic property. Being only 20 minutes from the airport and a couple of hours flight from a host of European cities makes Monte-Bougainvillea also a place of choice for a quick get away under the sun.

And if you have more in mind than a short holiday, you would not be our first guests who end up buying in the area and becoming neighbours!

Monte-Bougainvillea just so happens to also be an ideal life changing opportunity for sale in the Algarve. A luxury villa with a 100k+ yearly tourist rental business we run as a husband and wife limited company. The company is included in the price of the villa, and now so is the AL license necessary for short term rentals in Portugal. We'll add this subliminal note that all these details point to fully regularised and legal situation for both villa and business which could be a concern to a potential buyer from abroad. The price of the property is more than justified by it's value so that in accounting terms you could say the business, the inventory and the company are included for free.

If your dream involves sunshine and palm trees and you are looking for an self-investment opportunity that can pay for itself while allowing you to fully control your work life balance. If hospitality or 'bed & breakfast' ever come to mind in your next step in life, we have an offer that has already beaten all the paths for you. A turn key home & high rated business with instant bookings & profitability. And the only breakfast you have to cook is your own, if you want some.

So with this we turn our sights, and hopes, to 2025.

We figure this great business with these great results offering a great opportunity for a great lifestyle will find a great buyer. Meanwhile we still have the same enthusiasm as the day we opened Monte-Bougainvillea. We don't need to retire, but we can, and so we want to. Knowing it's a question of time does not solve the equation until we know just how much. We don't, and won't until we do.