Western Australia · Holiday-Home Marketing

Airbnb Marketing
in Mandurah

Running a holiday home in Mandurah, Halls Head, Falcon or Dawesville? Here are the earnings figures, the state and City rules, and a marketing plan, with every source listed.

Get a quotePrices in A$
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Australia/Markets/Mandurah
A$395
Avg. nightly rate
43%
Avg. occupancy
A$3,854
Avg. monthly revenue
3.5-4.3%
Est. gross yield
MODERATE
Seasonality
MODERATE
Rules to follow

* Market averages in Australian dollars from AirROI data for the Mandurah, WA Airbnb market (Mandurah, Halls Head, Falcon and Dawesville sit inside it), October 2025 to September 2026, in Australian dollars as AirROI shows them. The yield is Cavmir's estimate. A single home's numbers depend on its size, its location and how it is marketed.

The market

Holiday Rentals in Mandurah

Cavmir is an Airbnb marketing agency for Australian holiday homes. This page is for owners and managers of short-stay homes in Mandurah.

Mandurah sits on the Peel-Harvey Estuary, about an hour south of Perth by car, and since 23 December 2007 the Mandurah train line has run into the city centre as well. Visit Mandurah describes the estuary as twice the size of Sydney Harbour, and the Peel Regional Tourism Development Strategy counts 134 kilometres of waterways, more than 100 wild dolphins and internationally protected wetlands. The Noongar name for the place is Mandjoogoordap, which Visit Mandurah translates as the meeting place of the heart. Mandurah was named WA's Top Tourism Town in 2022 and 2023, and the City of Mandurah calls itself the state's largest regional city. If you own a holiday home here, you are marketing a place with a name that already carries weight with Perth families, and that helps.

The people who book are mostly Australians: AirROI puts the domestic share of guests at 78%. Tourism WA's Overnight Visitor Factsheet for the City of Mandurah (published April 2026) records 632,000 domestic overnight trips in 2025, 1.546 million nights and A$422 million in visitor spend. The same factsheet shows that a rented house or apartment accounted for 19% of visitor nights in Mandurah, against 9% for Western Australia as a whole. That is the clearest sign we found that this is a town where guests choose a whole home over a hotel room, and it is the reason a direct-booking website and a good Airbnb listing both pay their way here.

The homes themselves are mostly houses. AirROI, the market-data service behind the figures on this page, counts 312 active listings in Mandurah for the 12 months to September 2026. Of those, 63.5% are houses, 27.6% are apartments, and 96.2% are entire homes. Waterfront homes make up 41% of listings, and they earn noticeably more: AirROI puts their average annual revenue at A$59,800 against A$36,700 for the rest. Canal homes with a private jetty are a Mandurah specialty, and Visit Mandurah notes that many canal properties have one. A jetty that guests can use for crabbing, fishing or stepping into a hired boat is a selling point you can show in a photo.

This page covers four places. Mandurah itself takes in the city centre, the foreshore, the marina and the canal estates. Halls Head sits on the peninsula to the south-west of the centre, and AirROI's own page for it shows 35 active listings, an average daily rate of A$428, occupancy of 40% and A$41,532 in average annual revenue. Falcon is a coastal suburb with beach and estuary access, close to Falcon Bay Beach and The Cut. Dawesville is residential and sits beside the estuary and the Dawesville Channel. AirROI has no separate page for Falcon or Dawesville, so the market figures further down describe the Mandurah market as a whole, and we say so each time.

Guests who choose Mandurah tend to want water: dolphins from a cruise boat, crabs from the estuary, a calm beach for the children, a canal to look at from the deck. In summer they want the Christmas lights, and in autumn the Crab Fest. A good listing says which of those your home is close to, how long the walk or drive is, and what the home gives a family that a motel does not: a kitchen, a barbecue, a fenced yard, parking for the boat. Every figure on this page comes from a source listed at the bottom, and where a figure was out of reach we left it out.

What brings guests to Mandurah

  • Giants of Mandurah: Thomas Dambo's trail of large wooden sculptures, opened in November 2022, with trail starts at Halls Head, Coodanup, Lakelands and Wannanup
  • Dolphin cruises from Mandjar Bay, among more than 100 resident Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in the Peel-Harvey Estuary
  • Boat tours, a pirate ship cruise and self-drive boat hire on the canals and estuary, plus the Christmas lights cruises from around 1 December
  • Sheltered swimming at Town Beach, Lido Beach and Falcon Bay Beach, with a surf break and rock pools at Avalon Beach and patrolled surf at Pyramids Beach
  • The Mandurah Foreshore loop, which links cafes, beaches and rest stops, with bike and e-bike hire from The Bike Kiosk
  • Crabbing and fishing on the estuary, and meals with estuary views around the marina and foreshore
  • Kayaking at Creery Wetlands and Riverside Gardens, and birdwatching at Len Howard Conservation Park
  • The Peel Produce Market on the Dawesville foreshore every Saturday, and craft beer at Wedgetail Brewing and Boundary Island Brewery
The Mandurah estuary seen from the Mandurah Bridge

Photo: “Mandurah Estuary S from Mandurah Bridge” by Orderinchaos, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Cavmir in Mandurah

What Cavmir Does for Mandurah Hosts

Cavmir markets homes and does not manage them, and the work is done remotely for Australian owners. In Mandurah that covers a website for taking bookings direct, written around what guests here search for (the canal, the jetty, dolphin cruises, the Giants trail, the Christmas lights), listing copy and photo direction for Airbnb, Booking.com and Stayz or Vrbo, Google Business Profile and local search, pages that AI assistants can quote, and an email and social calendar tied to the Western Australian school holidays. The guests, the calendar and the cleaner stay yours. Our job is the moment a Perth family chooses which home to book.

Website designYour own site and domain, with direct booking from your PMS or a button to your listing.Learn more →Monthly marketingSocial posts, guide pages, email and AI search, done every month.Learn more →Prices in A$Every package and plan in Australian dollars, with the terms in plain words.Learn more →
Then and now

The Mandurah Short-Stay Market, Then and Now

Before there was a holiday-rental market, there was a place. Visit Mandurah records the Noongar creation story in which the Wagyl, a rainbow serpent, shaped the Peel Inlet and Estuary, and describes the Peel-Yalgorup wetlands as a vital source of food, water and ceremony. A monument in Yaburgurt Kaaleepga Reserve at Halls Head honours Winjan (Yaburgurt), a survivor of the 1834 Pinjarra massacre. These are living stories as well as history, and Visit Mandurah points guests to the Bilya Country Story Trail, which has 13 sites, and to guided walks. A welcome book that sends guests to them tells your visitors you know where you are.

The waterways have been reshaped in recent memory. The Dawesville Channel was opened by Premier Richard Court on 23 April 1994 at a cost of A$54 million, built for environmental reasons, to deal with the yearly algae blooms that choked the Peel-Harvey Estuary and harmed marine life. The state government said at the time that it would also bring recreation and tourism benefits to the area. Visit Mandurah says the canals were built in the late 20th century, and the Mandurah line train opened on 23 December 2007, putting the city within a train ride of Perth. Those changes sit behind what a guest sees today: a canal to cruise past, an estuary to paddle and a direct train line from Perth.

Short-stay letting grew alongside all that. The history is in a City of Mandurah committee report of 19 May 2025: on 24 March 2015 council asked officers to report back on starting a local law, on 23 June 2015 it adopted a 'Responsive Action' approach to holiday homes, and on 1 August 2017 it chose to carry on with an approach that limits its involvement in approvals. The same report points to the 2019 parliamentary inquiry into short-term rentals, notes that registration has been compulsory across WA since 1 January 2025, and counts 600 registered premises in Mandurah from public information (Mandurah's rules are set out in the regulation section below).

Two things have lifted the town's profile since. Thomas Dambo's Giants of Mandurah opened in November 2022, and the state government reported in June 2024 that in the first 12 months more than 86,000 visitors from outside the Peel region came for the trail, spending nearly 350,000 nights in local accommodation, an average of about four nights each, and about A$64 million in the Peel region. And the Crab Fest, which past editions have drawn crowds of more than 100,000, ran on 14 and 15 March 2026 and has funding through 2028. The market today is a mature one: AirROI shows 312 active listings, down 16% on a year earlier, and average revenue per listing down 3.5%. Supply is easing and demand is steady, which favours the homes with the best listings.

Rates and seasons

Rates, Occupancy and Seasons in Mandurah

Rates and revenue

Every market figure in the stats box is taken from AirROI's Mandurah, WA page and covers the 12 months from October 2025 to September 2026. The amounts are the Australian dollars AirROI shows (it converts from US dollars at about A$1.44, and we have not converted them a second time). AirROI does not say exactly where its Mandurah boundary falls, so read the numbers as the Mandurah market as a whole, which includes Halls Head, Falcon, Dawesville and the canal estates. The average daily rate is A$395, occupancy is 43.1%, revenue per available night (RevPAR) is A$159, and the average listing earned A$46,249 over the year. The 'monthly' figure of A$3,854 is that annual revenue divided by 12, an average across the year and not a typical month. Against AirROI's Western Australia averages (an A$335 rate, 52% occupancy and A$50,425 in revenue), Mandurah charges more per night and fills fewer of them.

Bedroom count drives earnings more than anything else. In AirROI's bedroom table, a one-bedroom home sits at an A$234 rate and 45% occupancy, with median annual revenue of A$22,700. Two bedrooms: A$285, 50% and A$36,800. Three bedrooms: A$349, 43% and A$37,900. Four bedrooms: A$500, 38% and A$52,000. Five or more: A$837, 33% and A$74,300. The three-bedroom home earns only slightly more than the two-bedroom one, which tells you that a three-bedroom listing has to be sold on something other than size: a jetty, a pool, a position by the water. The best-earning listing AirROI names, a five-bedroom villa, took A$285,281 at 76.4% occupancy and an A$1,007 rate, and the next five top earners range from A$145,986 to A$203,766. Those are the top of the market, not a target.

Guests book early and stay a while. AirROI puts the average lead time at 63 days and the average stay at 4.5 nights, and the median cleaning fee at A$186 (the average is A$267). A 4.5-night stay with a A$186 cleaning fee means the fee is a real part of what the guest pays, so check it against what you actually spend. Airbnb's Guest favourite badge sits on 50% of Mandurah listings and the average guest rating is 4.82, so a rating near the top is expected, not a differentiator. Instant Book is on in 21.2% of listings, and 38.1% have a co-host. Professional management companies run 16.7% of the listings and owners run the rest, which means most of your competitors are people like you. These figures describe Airbnb only. Stayz, Vrbo and Booking.com sit alongside it for many hosts, and we have not measured them here.

Set the average A$46,249 against a Mandurah median house price of about A$700,000 (Microburbs' report for Mandurah 6210, based on 222 sales in the preceding 12 months) and the gross yield is 6.6%. The median three-bedroom listing's A$37,900 is a gross 5.4%. AirROI also prints its own cost estimate for an owner-run listing: running costs of A$16,260, which leaves A$29,989 for housing costs. That is 4.3% of A$700,000. Applying the same cost share (about 35%) to the three-bedroom median leaves roughly A$24,600, or 3.5%, and that is why the stats box shows 3.5% to 4.3%. These are returns before council and water rates, insurance, any loan interest and upkeep that AirROI's estimate does not cover, and AirROI says it uses the low end of typical running costs, so your own figure may be lower. Treat it as arithmetic, not a forecast.

The year in Mandurah

Mandurah's year follows summer and the Western Australian school calendar. In AirROI's monthly table (September 2025 to August 2026), January is the busiest month at A$7,641 average revenue and 59.7% occupancy, with December next at A$7,345 and 57.4%. The slowest are May (A$3,881, 33.7%), August (A$3,784, 35.2%) and June (A$3,995, 36.3%), so the best month earns roughly twice the weakest. Rates move far less than occupancy: the monthly average runs from A$352 in September to A$412 in July, and the winter months are priced as high as the summer ones. AirROI does not say why, so we would not treat it as a reason to raise your own winter rate.

Summer here runs December to February, and the term dates fix the school-holiday weeks. Public schools in WA finish on Thursday 17 December 2026 and go back on Monday 1 February 2027. After that come the April holidays (Saturday 10 to Sunday 25 April 2027), the July holidays (Saturday 3 to Sunday 18 July 2027) and a spring break that begins on Saturday 25 September 2027 and ends on Sunday 10 October (WA Department of Education). Lay over those the Christmas Lights Trail, which opens on Friday 4 December 2026 and runs to 3 January, fireworks on New Year's Eve at 9 pm and at midnight, and the Crab Fest, which the City lists for 13 and 14 March 2027, and the main booking windows are clear. Wildflowers bring walkers from September to November. Winter is the quiet stretch, and midweek or longer winter stays with a firm cleaning fee are a sensible way to fill it.

The rules

Short-Stay Rules in Mandurah

State register. If a Mandurah home takes paying guests, it has to be on Western Australia's Short-Term Rental Accommodation (STRA) Register before you advertise it or accept a booking, hosted or not. That has applied statewide since 1 January 2025, and the Department of Local Government, Industry Regulation and Safety runs the register. It costs A$250 to register and A$100 a year to renew (fees page updated 2 July 2026). Put the registration number conspicuously in every advertisement: an ad for an unregistered home, or one with the number missing or false, is a prohibited advertisement, and publishing it is an offence (department page updated 9 July 2025). The state announced penalties of up to A$20,000 for an individual and A$100,000 for a corporation when the laws passed in 2024. Registration data goes to local governments as well, and the City of Mandurah's own count in May 2025 was 600 registered premises.

Planning in Mandurah. Registering and planning approval are two separate steps. The 90-night exemption belongs to the Perth metropolitan area only; in regional areas such as Peel, each local government decides whether an unhosted home needs approval (State planning page, updated 5 January 2026). Mandurah's scheme is Local Planning Scheme No 12. The scheme text on the state website (updated May 2026) lists Amendments 1, 2, 4 and 7, none of them about short stays, and still uses the term 'holiday house': a single dwelling on one lot used for short-term accommodation, which means no guest staying more than three months in any 12 months. Amendment 8 is the change to watch. A City committee report of 19 May 2025 asked council to prepare it so that 'holiday house' and 'bed and breakfast' give way to the state's hosted and unhosted classes. It proposed hosted stays as a permitted use wherever a dwelling can be approved and unhosted stays as permitted in residential zones, and it says plainly that the City's previous approach to holiday homes is not changing. Amendment 8 is not in the scheme text, so on 29 October 2026 we treat it as a proposal and not as law; we found no gazettal. We also found no City of Mandurah page that explains the rules to hosts, so ask the City which zone your home is in and whether any approval or condition applies before you list.

Strata and community titles. The register's FAQ tells owners in a strata or community title scheme to check that the by-laws do not prohibit short-term rental, and a prohibiting by-law puts your registration at risk of suspension or cancellation. You may register before a required development approval is granted, but you must record where it stands (approved, submitted, refused, not obtained or permitted) and update the register once you have the approval number. The register covers stays totalling under three months in a 12-month period; a longer stay that is not a holiday may come under the Residential Tenancies Act 1987.

Tax and foreign owners. Short-stay income is rental income to the Australian Taxation Office. Interest, rates, insurance and other ownership and use costs are claimable only if the home is chiefly used or held to earn rent, while costs of renting alone (commissions, booking and advertising fees, cleaning after guests) stay claimable either way. Nights for family and friends who pay nothing or less than market rent must be apportioned out, and in its worked example the ATO treats blocking out dates for your own use as putting personal use first. For foreign owners, it is Government policy from 1 April 2025 to 30 June 2029 that foreign persons, including temporary residents and foreign-owned companies, are generally banned from acquiring established dwellings (Guidance Note 6, version 5, 1 July 2026), and WA adds 7% duty when a foreign person buys residential property. Every state and territory is covered on the Australian short-stay rules page.

This is orientation, not legal advice, and rules change. Confirm anything that affects your home with the City of Mandurah, the department that runs the register and your own lawyer or accountant. Cavmir looks after the marketing side.

Marketing

Marketing a Holiday Home in Mandurah

What works here

Lead with the water, and prove it. The Mandurah guest is choosing between a canal home, a beach house and a unit near the foreshore, so the first five photos should say which one yours is. For a canal home that means the jetty, the view along the canal and the deck at dusk; for a beach house it means the walk to the sand; for a unit, the foreshore. AirROI's listings average 16 photos and only 29% show their exact location, so 25 to 30 well-ordered photos and a clear map pin will set yours apart. Name the distance to Town Beach, Falcon Bay Beach, the Mandurah Foreshore or Mandjar Bay in the first lines of the description, and give it in minutes by foot or car, not 'close to everything'.

Write for the family that is deciding. The guest is likely to be a Perth family or a group of friends booking a long weekend or a week in the school holidays. Say how many beds are real beds, whether the yard is fenced, whether the barbecue is gas, where the boat or the kayaks go, and whether the home takes pets (AirROI does not report a pet-friendly share, so check your own competitors' listings and decide on purpose). Free parking on the premises is standard (99% of Mandurah listings offer it), so mention a boat-sized space if you have one. Mention the dolphin cruise, the Giants trail and the Christmas lights as reasons to visit, but list only places you have checked, with the opening days written down.

Give each channel its own job. Airbnb is the platform AirROI measures, and its 63-day average lead time means opening your calendar at least three months ahead and pricing the school holidays early. Booking.com and Stayz or Vrbo reach guests who never start on Airbnb, so keep them in sync with identical house rules. Your own website lets you offer the same home without a platform fee, and in WA it needs your registration number like any other advertisement. Match the photos, the cleaning fee and the minimum stay everywhere: a guest who finds a different total on your site from the one on Airbnb stops trusting both.

Price the shoulder months on purpose. In AirROI's table occupancy falls to 33.7% in May and 35.2% in August, and a A$186 cleaning fee on a one-night stay puts people off. Set a two-night minimum in winter, offer a weekly discount so the cleaning fee is a smaller share of the total, and give people a reason to come: a winter weekend with the fire lit, a wildflower weekend in spring, a seafood weekend around the March Crab Fest. Keep the Christmas and January weeks open for guests and take your own stays in the shoulder months, since the ATO weighs how often a holiday home is available at the times people most want it.

What makes it hard

The first challenge is that supply is large and rates are high while occupancy is modest. With 312 active listings, a 43.1% occupancy rate and an A$395 average rate, a Mandurah host is competing with homes of every size and price, and the market's strongest earners (waterfront homes, five-bedroom villas) are far ahead of the median. A host with an ordinary three-bedroom house cannot out-spend them, but can out-write them: a listing that names the specific reason to stay, shows it in the photos and answers the guest's questions is worth more than another year of price cuts. AirROI shows active listings down 16% and revenue per listing down 3.5%, so the competition is easing, but it has not gone away.

The second is seasonality and a school-holiday calendar that you cannot move. January averages A$7,641 in revenue and May A$3,881, and the Christmas to January fortnight is the one window where a guest will pay for a whole week. A host answers by pricing those weeks early and holding the minimum stay, then using the rest of the year for what is available: midweek and longer winter stays, wildflower weekends and event weekends. A direct website helps here because you can send past guests an email in September about the summer weeks before they appear on the platform.

The third is paperwork that is still moving. The register is compulsory, and the City's committee report describes holiday homes as permitted in residential zones, but the City has proposed Amendment 8 to rewrite the scheme's wording, and its approach since 2015 has been to respond to complaints. If neighbours or other canal-estate residents complain, expect the City to act. Register on time, put the number on every advertisement, keep the house rules clear on noise, parking and boats, give the neighbours a contact number and leave a short guest guide in the home. A calm record of how the house is run protects you better than any clause.

Worth knowing. The Dawesville Channel, opened by Premier Richard Court on 23 April 1994 at a cost of A$54 million and finished eight months early, was built for environmental reasons, to deal with the yearly algae blooms that choked the Peel-Harvey Estuary. It has since become part of the town's holiday story: Visit Mandurah lists the Dawesville Channel among the best places to watch dolphins, and the estuary is home to more than 100 resident Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins.
Money matters for Mandurah owners
Insurance

Ordinary home and contents cover often stops short of paying guests. Moneysmart warns that cover you would normally expect, such as for a granny flat, may not apply once you rent it out, and tells you to read the exclusions, the Key Fact Sheet and the product disclosure statement. Write to your insurer saying the home takes short-term guests. Then ask a broker about public liability, guest injury and accidental damage by guests, and about any jetty, canal frontage or pool. Cover matters most on a canal home with a jetty.

Tax

To the ATO, short-stay income is rental income. If the home is chiefly used or held to earn rent, interest, rates and insurance are claimable; if it is not, only costs that arise from renting alone (booking fees, advertising, cleaning after guests) are. Stays by family and friends who pay nothing or less than market rent have to be apportioned, and the ATO reads dates blocked out for your own use as a sign that personal use comes first. GST and capital gains tax depend on how the home is used. Sofie is not an accountant, so see one before you set up.

Lending and land tax

Lenders do not treat a short-stay home like a long-term rental, so ask a mortgage broker early how they assess Airbnb income. WA land tax is charged on land you own at midnight on 30 June, and it applies to land that is not your main home, so a holiday home is generally caught. The state says it is based on unimproved value, with notices issued between September and January (page updated 2 September 2026). A foreign buyer pays 7% extra duty on residential property in WA, and the federal policy is a ban on foreign persons buying established dwellings from 1 April 2025 to 30 June 2029. Test your loan against your own revenue, not the AirROI average.

Your own website

A Direct-Booking Website for a Mandurah Home

A Mandurah direct-booking website has three jobs: show the total price before the guest clicks, answer what a Perth family wants to know, and carry your registration number. The pages worth writing are one per home (canal, jetty or the walk to the sand in the first screen), one for each thing guests plan around (dolphin cruises, the Giants of Mandurah trail, the Christmas Lights Trail, the Crab Fest), a getting-here page (about an hour by car from Perth, or the Mandurah line train) and a house-rules page covering noise, parking and boats. Our website design page shows how we build them.

A few legal points land on your booking page. On price, the federal unfair trading practices reforms, which include tougher drip-pricing rules, were announced on 1 April 2026 (Treasury) and have since passed Parliament, and they start on 1 July 2027 (McCullough Robertson, 3 July 2026). Show the cleaning fee and any other compulsory charge in the price on day one. On card fees, the Reserve Bank's ban has applied since 1 October 2026: businesses can no longer add a surcharge to eftpos, Mastercard or Visa debit, prepaid or credit payments, in person or online (RBA conclusions paper; CommBank, 28 September 2026). Do not add a card surcharge line; fold the cost into your rate. Add a privacy policy and a cookie notice, and show your WA registration number on the site: the department says it must appear in all advertisements, and our reading is that a website is one.

Publish what a guest needs and nothing the home cannot back up. Say whether there is a jetty and how far the water is, which beach is nearest, whether pets are allowed, how the beds are arranged and how many cars fit. Add a calendar and a clear route to book. A guest typing 'canal house Mandurah' or 'Falcon beach house' will land on your page if it says those things in plain words. The site also builds an email list: someone who booked in January is the person to write to in September.

AI search

Getting Named in AI Answers About Mandurah

More guests now ask an AI assistant where to stay. Ask 'where can we stay near the Mandurah dolphin cruise with a jetty for the kids to fish' and the answer comes from a tool that reads pages instead of listing results, and it quotes the pages that state facts plainly: bedrooms, the distance to Mandjar Bay, whether the jetty is private, whether the home is registered in WA. A host whose website says all of that, in sentences an assistant can lift, is the host that gets named. A host with a gallery and a one-line description is not. The same applies to the questions you can answer on your own pages: which is the best beach for toddlers, what to do on a wet day, where to buy fresh crab.

Cavmir writes pages that answer those questions, adds structured data so search tools know what each page covers, and keeps your facts the same on your site, your Google Business Profile and your listings. Our guide to generative engine optimisation for holiday rentals explains how it works. We cannot promise an assistant will mention your home, and nobody can, but we can make the facts easy to find.

What's next

Where Mandurah Is Heading

The Peel Regional Tourism Development Strategy 2023-2033 sets the region's direction for the next decade. Its accommodation actions include seeking new short-stay offerings that fill gaps (its example is trail-based stays in Dwellingup) and asking operators across the region to renovate and renew what they have, and it names events and a more varied set of visitor experiences as priorities. For a host the reading is that the region wants visitors to stay overnight, and a home that is well kept and well described fits that.

The event calendar has fixed points. The Crab Fest has state funding to 2028 (WA Government, 14 March 2026), and the City lists it for 13 and 14 March 2027. The Giants of Mandurah, which opened in November 2022, brought visitors who averaged about four nights in the Peel region in their first year. On rules, the City's proposed Amendment 8 would move its scheme wording to the state's hosted and unhosted classes if it is gazetted, and the federal unfair trading practices reforms start on 1 July 2027. We checked each of these on 29 October 2026 and will update the page as they change.

The market itself is thinning out: AirROI counts 312 active listings, down 16% on a year earlier, with revenue per listing down 3.5%. That favours a host who already does the basics well. If the number of homes keeps falling, a clear, well-photographed, registered listing will have fewer rivals. It is one reason to work on the website and listing text now, before the Christmas lights and the summer school holidays arrive.

Why we like the work

Why We Love Marketing in Mandurah

What I love about marketing homes in Mandurah is that the reason to book is easy to show. There is a canal outside the window, a jetty you can walk onto, a dolphin cruise leaving from Mandjar Bay in the morning and a Christmas lights cruise leaving in the evening. When I write a listing here I can name the beach, give the minutes by foot and tell the family what the children will do. Few markets give a writer as much that is concrete.

Much of the story here is local and recent too: the Dawesville Channel opening in 1994, the train in 2007, the Giants trail in 2022. I can check each one, and each tells a guest the town offers more than a foreshore. The Noongar stories on the Bilya Country Story Trail and the Winjan memorial at Halls Head belong with them, and a host who mentions them in the welcome book gives guests another reason to look up from the phone.

The work I enjoy most is the small rewrite that makes a home findable: a first paragraph that says 'canal home with a private jetty, eight minutes from the foreshore' in place of 'lovely property near everything'. In a market with this many listings, that sentence is what a family finds when it asks a search tool for a place to stay. Hosts who do it are the ones I would like to work with.

Welcome book

Picks for Your Mandurah Welcome Book

Eleven places for a Mandurah welcome book, all listed by Visit Mandurah or the City of Mandurah. Check opening days with each venue before you send guests, and update the list each season.

Morning

Giants of Mandurah

Thomas Dambo's trail of large wooden sculptures opened in November 2022. Trail starts include Halls Head (Santi Ikto), Coodanup (Yaburgurt Cirkelstone), Lakelands (Little Lui) and Wannanup (Seba's Song), and Visit Mandurah says the Giants are within 40 kilometres of each other. Guided e-bike, cruise and coach tours are available.

Morning

Dolphin cruise from Mandjar Bay

Visit Mandurah says guided cruises run daily from Mandjar Bay and that more than 100 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins live permanently in the Peel-Harvey Estuary. Mandurah Cruises' Dolphin Cruise & Views has a dolphin guarantee. Early morning and late afternoon are calmer.

Beach

Town Beach and Lido Beach

Town Beach has Surf Life Saving supervision on weekends, shaded areas, toilets, barbecues and a playground, with cafes nearby. Lido Beach is a man-made swimming area with a large shelter, a playground, barbecues and all-day parking.

Beach

Falcon Bay Beach

Calm, sheltered water for swimming and picnics, with public toilets and showers.

Walk

Erskine Nature Trail

A peaceful 6-kilometre walk in Len Howard Conservation Park. Visit Mandurah names cowslip orchids, blue lace flowers and white myrtle on it, and gives spring, September to November, as the time for Mandurah's wildflowers.

Water

Kayaking at Creery Wetlands

Calm-water paddling through the estuary, mangroves and channels, with launch points at Creery Wetlands and Riverside Gardens. Dolphin guidelines ask kayakers to stay 100 metres away.

Market

Peel Produce Market, Dawesville

A market by the estuary at the Foreshore Reserve in Dawesville, listed by Visit Mandurah as running every Saturday, with fresh produce, locally made goods and live music.

Drink

Wedgetail Brewing and Boundary Island Brewery

Wedgetail Brewing is an independently owned craft microbrewery between the Peel Estuary and the ocean, and Boundary Island Brewery is at the Mandurah Quay Resort and was started by two Mandurah families. Check opening days with each venue.

Rainy day

CASM, Contemporary Art Spaces Mandurah

The gallery at 63 Ormsby Terrace, Mandurah, is open Wednesday to Sunday from 10 am to 4 pm during exhibitions and runs a workshop program, including creative workshops for children. Check what is on before you send guests.

Evening

Christmas Lights Trail

Free on the Eastern Foreshore from Friday 4 December 2026 until Sunday 3 January 2027, with 35 light installations. Lights cruises on the canals generally start around 1 December and are booked through the operators.

Wildlife

The Cut Golf Course, Dawesville

At 69 Country Club Drive, Dawesville. Visit Mandurah lists it as a place to see wild kangaroos. Check the club's opening and booking rules.

The playbook

How Cavmir Would Market Three Mandurah Homes

Cavmir has no clients in Mandurah yet. These are the plans it would start with for three common kinds of home here: the situation, the plan, and what each one aims at.

Four-bedroom canal home with a jetty in Mandurah
The situation

A family home on a canal with a private jetty, advertised on Airbnb with a few phone photos. AirROI shows four-bedroom homes in the market at an A$500 average rate and 38% occupancy, with waterfront homes earning more than the rest, so the owner suspects the listing undersells the canal.

The plan

A direct-booking website with one page for the home, written around the jetty and the canal; a new photo order that opens with the jetty at dusk; listing copy that gives the minutes to Mandjar Bay and the foreshore; a Google Business Profile; pages for the dolphin cruise, the Giants trail and the Christmas lights cruises; and an email to past guests before the school holidays.

What it targets

The plan aims for more guests who book direct and a home that is described the same way on every channel. Track enquiries from the website, the share of bookings that come direct, and the pages guests open before they book.

Two-bedroom unit near the foreshore or at Halls Head
The situation

A two-bedroom apartment near the water, used mostly by couples and small families. AirROI shows two-bedroom homes at an A$285 average rate and 50% occupancy, so the unit is sound but competes with many similar ones. The owner needs to check the strata by-laws and the register before changing anything.

The plan

A review of the by-laws and the WA registration number on every listing; a listing rewritten around the walk to the foreshore or Town Beach; a two-night minimum in winter; a short guide to the dolphin cruise, e-bike hire and the Saturday market; and a small website that carries the registration number and the total price.

What it targets

The plan aims to make the unit the obvious choice for a short break and to hold winter midweek stays. Track the winter calendar, the average length of stay and repeat bookings.

Three-bedroom beach house in Falcon or Dawesville that the owner also uses
The situation

A three-bedroom house a short drive from Falcon Bay Beach, used by the owner for some weeks of the year and rented for the rest. AirROI shows three-bedroom homes at an A$349 rate and 43% occupancy, and the ATO expects private use to be apportioned and weighs how often the home can be rented when guests most want it.

The plan

A calendar plan that keeps the Christmas, January and school-holiday weeks open to guests and puts owner use in the shoulder months; listing and website copy about the beach, the estuary and the Peel Produce Market; a spring wildflower weekend and an autumn Crab Fest weekend; and a record of owner stays for the accountant.

What it targets

The plan aims for a calendar that matches what guests want and a clean separation between owner use and rental use. Track nights booked in the holiday windows, direct bookings and the nights the owner blocks.

FAQ

Mandurah Airbnb Marketing: Questions, Answered

Does Cavmir offer Airbnb and holiday-home marketing in Mandurah?

Yes. Cavmir works remotely with Australian owners on the marketing only: a website for direct bookings, listing copy and photo direction for Airbnb, Booking.com and Stayz or Vrbo, Google and AI search, social and email. Cavmir is a marketing agency and not a property manager, so cleaning, keys and guests stay with you. Prices are on the pricing page.

Do I have to register my Mandurah holiday home?

Yes. A Mandurah home that takes paying guests needs a place on the WA STRA Register before you advertise it or accept a booking, and that has been the rule since 1 January 2025. It costs A$250 to register and A$100 a year to renew, and the number goes in every advertisement. This is orientation, not legal advice.

Do I need development approval from the City of Mandurah?

Not necessarily, but the Perth 90-night exemption does not cover Mandurah because it sits in the Peel region, so the City's scheme decides. A City report of 19 May 2025 describes holiday homes as permitted in residential zones and says its approach is not changing, and Amendment 8, which would change the wording, was not in the scheme text on 29 October 2026. We found no City page for hosts, so confirm your zone and any condition with the City before you list.

What does the average Mandurah Airbnb earn?

AirROI shows an average of A$46,249 a year per listing, an average rate of A$395 and 43.1% occupancy for the 12 months to September 2026. Size matters: the median two-bedroom home earned A$36,800 and the median four-bedroom A$52,000. These are averages, not promises.

When is Mandurah busiest?

December and January. AirROI has January at 59.7% occupancy and December at 57.4%. The summer school holidays run from 18 December 2026 to 31 January 2027, the Christmas Lights Trail opens on 4 December 2026, and the City lists the Crab Fest for 13 and 14 March 2027.

Can a strata scheme stop me listing my apartment?

Yes, if its by-laws prohibit short-term rental. The state's register FAQ tells owners to check that the by-laws do not prohibit it, and breaching a prohibiting by-law can cost you your registration. Read the by-laws before you list.

Do I have to show my registration number on my own website?

The department says the number must be conspicuously displayed in all advertisements, and an advertisement without it is prohibited. Our reading is that a website offering your home is an advertisement, so show the number. Ask the department if you are unsure.

Is a direct-booking website worth having in Mandurah?

It gives you a page you control, a list of past guests to email before the school holidays and a total price shown up front. AirROI puts 78% of Mandurah's guests as domestic, which suits a site written for Australian families. A website works alongside Airbnb, not in place of it.

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Tell Us About Your Mandurah Holiday Home

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