New South Wales · Holiday-Home Marketing

Airbnb Marketing
in Southern Highlands

Marketing for holiday homes in the Southern Highlands, from Bowral, Burradoo and Exeter to Mittagong, Moss Vale, Berrima, Sutton Forest and Bundanoon, so you win more direct bookings and a better rate on the nights you do sell.

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Australia/Markets/Southern Highlands
A$579
Avg. nightly rate
44%
Avg. occupancy
A$6,180
Avg. monthly revenue
3-5%
Est. gross yield
LOW
Seasonality
MODERATE
Rules to follow

* Market averages in Australian dollars from AirROI data for Bowral, New South Wales, October 2025 to September 2026 (updated 1 October 2026), in Australian dollars as AirROI shows them; Mittagong, Moss Vale, Berrima, Bundanoon, Burradoo and Exeter figures come from their own AirROI pages or its nearby-markets table and are labelled in the copy. 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 the Southern Highlands

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

The Southern Highlands is the part of Wingecarribee Shire around Bowral, Mittagong and Moss Vale, about 100 km south-west of Sydney and about 150 km from Canberra, both measured in a straight line. It is Gundungurra and D'harawal Country, and the council's Local Housing Strategy (adopted in June 2020 and amended in July 2021) says Europeans first explored the area in 1798 and that the Main Southern Railway drove the rapid growth of Mittagong, Bowral and Moss Vale in the 1860s. The same document calls those three the shire's main towns, describes the land between the towns as mostly farmland, and says more than 103,000 hectares, over 38 per cent of the shire, is national park or nature reserve. This page covers the towns owners ask us about most: Bowral and Burradoo, Mittagong, Moss Vale and Sutton Forest, Berrima, Exeter and Bundanoon. The stats box and most figures below come from AirROI's Bowral market, October 2025 to September 2026 (the page was updated on 1 October 2026), which is the closest single read on the Highlands. For Mittagong, Moss Vale, Berrima, Bundanoon, Burradoo and Exeter I use their own AirROI pages or its nearby-markets table, and I say so each time. AirROI quotes Australian dollars after converting from US dollars at roughly A$1.44, and every dollar figure here is as AirROI prints it.

On those figures Bowral is a high-rate market. AirROI counts 191 active listings, up 14 per cent on the year before, with average revenue of A$74,199 a listing (up 6.1 per cent), average occupancy of 44.1 per cent and an average daily rate of A$579. The New South Wales averages AirROI prints beside them are A$46,850 a year and A$445 a night, and it ranks Bowral 38th among the 305 market areas it tracks in the state. The nearby towns look different from Bowral and from each other. On their own AirROI pages for the same twelve months, Berrima averages A$69,853 a listing at A$671 a night with 54 listings, Bundanoon A$67,881 at A$612 with 61 listings, Moss Vale A$56,047 at A$455 with 85 listings and Mittagong A$54,532 at A$482 with 75 listings. AirROI's table of markets near Bowral adds Burradoo, with 40 listings averaging A$81,919 at A$597, and Exeter, with 38 listings averaging A$79,190 at A$778. Each of the five markets with a growth figure added listings over the year, by 11 to 23 per cent, which matters for the pricing and challenge sections below.

The guests are mostly Australians. AirROI puts 91 per cent of Bowral's guests as domestic, with Sydney the largest single origin at 19.1 per cent, then Canberra at 3.0, Melbourne at 1.7 and Newcastle at 1.1. The United Kingdom sends 3.1 per cent, the United States 1.4 and New Zealand 1.3. The pattern holds across the nearby towns: Sydney sends 21.5 per cent of Moss Vale's guests, 22.1 per cent of Berrima's, 20.7 per cent of Mittagong's and 18.9 per cent of Bundanoon's, and Bundanoon draws the most from Canberra at 6.6 per cent. Guests book about 67 days ahead on average in Bowral and stay 3.1 nights, so this is a short-break market that people plan a couple of months out. If you want to see how Sydney and Canberra guests search before they ever reach the Highlands, our pages for Sydney and Canberra cover the two cities that send the most of them.

The homes are mostly houses, and mostly whole homes. In Bowral, AirROI counts 95.8 per cent of listings as entire homes, 68.6 per cent as houses, 20.4 per cent as hotel or boutique stays and 4.7 per cent as apartments. Entire homes with three or more bedrooms make up 56 per cent of the entire homes that report a bedroom count, and 33 per cent of all listings sleep eight or more. Fireplaces are standard rather than special: 47 per cent of Bowral listings have an indoor fireplace, against 61 per cent in Mittagong, 63 per cent in Berrima and 75 per cent in Bundanoon. Free parking is listed by 92 per cent. Size drives revenue more than anything else on the page. Average annual revenue climbs from A$35,100 for a studio and A$42,900 for one bedroom to A$77,200 for three bedrooms, A$88,800 for four and A$143,000 for five or more. Studios and one-bedroom homes run at about 50 per cent occupancy, while homes with five or more bedrooms sit at 37 per cent and charge A$1,284 a night, so the big houses sell fewer nights at a much higher price.

The spread between the top and the middle of the market is wide. AirROI's monthly revenue tiers for a Bowral listing are A$15,000 or more for the top 10 per cent, A$9,240 or more for the top quarter, A$5,280 for the median and A$3,070 or less for the bottom quarter. The median nightly rate is A$425, the median occupancy about 43 per cent, and the top 10 per cent of listings are booked 79 per cent of nights or more. What the better listings have in common is mostly visible in AirROI's amenity table: the average listing with an indoor fireplace earns A$93,500 a year against A$57,400 without one, a BBQ grill A$91,300 against A$55,800, a fire pit A$88,900 against A$68,900 and a pet-friendly listing A$84,800 against A$66,900. Read those as a description of the homes that carry each feature, not proof that the feature caused the gap, since larger and better-placed houses tend to have all of them. They do show what Highlands guests choose to pay for: a fire in winter, a barbecue in summer and somewhere the dog is welcome.

What brings guests to Southern Highlands

  • The Bradman Museum in Bowral, on St Jude Street
  • Corbett Gardens and the Tulip Time festival, held since 1958
  • Ngununggula, the regional art gallery in Bowral
  • Berrima, settled in the 1830s and still a largely intact Georgian village
  • The Surveyor General Inn, licensed in 1835
  • Berrima District Museum, open Friday to Sunday
  • Morton National Park walks from Bundanoon
  • The Bundanoon Highland Gathering, known as Brigadoon, since 1978
Farmland and forest across the Southern Highlands from a lookout above Bowral

Photo: “Bowral NSW 2576, Australia - panoramio (1)” by Maksym Kozlenko, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Cavmir in Southern Highlands

What Cavmir Does for Southern Highlands Hosts

Cavmir treats a Southern Highlands house as a small hospitality business: the Burradoo place with a log fire that a Sydney family rebooks for the same winter weekend each year, the Berrima cottage a couple picks because lunch is a short walk away, the Bundanoon hideaway that walkers and Canberra friends find beside Morton National Park. For an owner here that means a direct-booking website with the fireplace and the total price on the first screen, a Google Business Profile and the pages that search engines and AI assistants read, photography directed so every room and every season is covered, social posts that follow the Tulip Time, autumn and winter calendar, and guest emails that bring last year's visitors back before they open Airbnb again. Cavmir works with Australian owners remotely; cleaning, check-ins and the daily running of the house stay with you or your local manager.

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 Southern Highlands Short-Stay Market, Then and Now

People have paid for a bed in the Highlands for much longer than platforms have existed. The Surveyor General Inn at Berrima says it was built in 1834 and licensed a year later, and calls itself Australia's oldest continuously licensed inn. The council's Local Housing Strategy describes Berrima as dating from the 1830s and surviving as the last remaining, largely intact, Georgian-period town on mainland Australia, and puts the first European settlement, at Bong Bong, around 1820 to 1821 on the Moss Vale Road between Moss Vale and Burradoo. The railway reshaped where visitors went. At Bundanoon, the hotel's own history says the original pub, The Commercial, was built soon after the railway arrived in 1868 and licensed in 1884, that the present building dates from 1922, when it was called The Royal, and that it became the Bundanoon Hotel in 1950. Those are accommodation businesses that grew around the line and the road, and the Hume Highway and the Southern railway line still carry guests to the Highlands today.

Events gave the year its shape. Tulip Time at Corbett Gardens in Bowral says it has run since 1958, and the NSW Government's events listing dates the Bundanoon Highland Gathering to 1978. Sturt in Mittagong was founded in 1941 by Winifred West, after she retired as headmistress of Frensham, and for decades it was the area's craft anchor. Its own website now talks about a 'new chapter' with a newly established entity, and a regional visitor listing marks the gallery as temporarily closed, so I haven't sent guests there in this page. Nothing on this list was built for holiday renters, but each gives a guest a reason to book one particular weekend, and together they sit alongside the spring, autumn and winter peaks AirROI shows in Bowral rather than one summer rush.

Rules for short stays arrived in steps. In December 2014 Wingecarribee Shire Council issued version 2 of a voluntary Holiday Rental Code of Conduct. It called holiday letting a long-established practice, noted that more of it had brought noise, littering and parking problems to some areas, and advised no more than two adults per bedroom. The state then took the field over: its mandatory Code of Conduct started on 18 December 2020, the planning rules on 1 November 2021 and the exclusion register in August 2022. In 2024 the Department of Planning put a discussion paper on public exhibition from 15 February to 14 March, and its project page reports over 430 submissions and more than 2,400 questionnaire responses.

Today the market is established, growing and mostly owner-run. AirROI counts 191 active listings in Bowral (up 14 per cent), 85 in Moss Vale (up 20), 75 in Mittagong (up 15), 61 in Bundanoon (up 11) and 54 in Berrima (up 23). In Bowral only 5.2 per cent of listings are professionally managed and 27.2 per cent have a co-host, AirROI puts the Superhost share at 64.9 per cent, and the ten biggest hosts by revenue run 29 per cent of the listings, the largest of them 20. Revenue per listing is not keeping pace everywhere: it rose 6.1 per cent in Bowral and 9.8 per cent in Mittagong, was up only 0.4 per cent in Berrima and 2.0 per cent in Bundanoon, and fell 6.3 per cent in Moss Vale. New supply is splitting the same weekends, which is why the listings that give a guest a clear reason to choose them are the ones holding their rate.

Rates and seasons

Rates, Occupancy and Seasons in Southern Highlands

Rates and revenue

Highlands pricing is set by bedrooms first. AirROI's Bowral table shows how steeply: a studio averages A$224 a night at 51 per cent occupancy, one bedroom A$271 at 50 per cent, two bedrooms A$339 at 49 per cent, three bedrooms A$587 at 42 per cent, four bedrooms A$749 at 38 per cent and five or more A$1,284 at 37 per cent. On the median listing, annual revenue steps up from A$31,100 for a studio through A$38,800, A$47,400, A$65,900 and A$81,000 to A$123,000 at five bedrooms or more. Whatever the size, the middle listing in Bowral charges A$425 a night, the top quarter A$730 or more, the top 10 per cent A$1,240 or more and the bottom quarter A$255 or less. The nearby towns show the same stair-step: Berrima's one-bedroom homes average A$231 a night, its three-bedroom homes A$558; Moss Vale's average A$245 and A$422; Bundanoon's two-bedroom homes A$289, three-bedroom A$593 and four-bedroom A$834.

The calendar moves revenue more than the rate. Bowral's average daily rate barely changes through the year, from about A$540 in February to about A$610 in June and July in AirROI's typical-year view, while occupancy swings from about 36 per cent in February to about 52 per cent in April. In AirROI's monthly table the best months were October 2025 at A$8,347 a listing and 51.2 per cent occupancy, July 2026 at A$8,650 with the year's highest rate of A$643, and April 2026 at 49.2 per cent; February 2026 was the weakest at A$4,965 and 36.4 per cent. Guests book furthest ahead for October, about 94 days in the table, and latest for June, about 49 days. Stays are longest in December and January, 3.6 and 3.7 nights, and shortest in August and November, 2.5 nights. Over a year the average Bowral listing grosses A$74,199, which is about A$6,180 a month; that is a yearly average spread evenly, and no single month pays exactly that. AirROI's estimate of what is left after running costs of A$28,470 is A$45,729 a year, about A$3,810 a month.

Fees are where owners lose money without noticing. In Bowral 85.9 per cent of listings add a cleaning fee, with a median of A$166 and an average of A$320, and AirROI puts cleaning fees at about 13 per cent of gross revenue. Spread the median fee over the average 3.1-night stay and it adds roughly A$54 to every night. Short stays are easy to get: 37 per cent of listings take a single night and 55 per cent ask for two, while Firm (33 per cent) and Moderate (24 per cent) are the cancellation policies you meet most. Ratings run high at 4.87 stars, yet value is the lowest-scoring category at 4.74, so the guest who paid a big cleaning fee for a two-night stay is the one most likely to mark you down. Ten more booked nights a year at the A$579 average rate would add about A$5,790. A house that fills a few more winter weeknights without cutting the weekends it already sells can gain more over the year than one that nudges up its headline rate.

The year in Southern Highlands

The Highlands has a flat year for a holiday market, with three small peaks. Averaged over the last two calendar years, AirROI has a Bowral listing earning from A$4,910 in February to A$8,270 in July, a spread of about 1.7 times, with July, October (A$7,970) and April (A$7,600) as the high months and February and May (A$6,270) the low ones. Each town peaks a little differently on its own AirROI page: Berrima in October at A$8,300 a listing, Bundanoon and Mittagong in July, Moss Vale in December at A$6,550. Spring belongs to Tulip Time at Corbett Gardens, which ran from 11 September to 5 October in 2026 and had not posted 2027 dates when I read the festival site, with the NSW spring school holidays from 28 September to 9 October 2026 on top of it. Autumn belongs to the Bundanoon Highland Gathering on Saturday 3 April 2027, and the April school break (12 to 23 April 2027) lands in the month when Bowral's occupancy typically peaks. July is the cold-weather peak, with the winter break from 5 to 16 July 2027. Eastern-division public schools finish for summer on 18 December 2026 and the holiday runs to 27 January 2027, and Bowral's December 2025 and January 2026 averages were A$7,446 and A$6,725 with the longest stays of the year.

The easiest gains sit in the weeks either side of those peaks. February is the weakest month in Bowral, at 36.4 per cent occupancy, and in Moss Vale, and May is Bowral's next-weakest calendar month on the two-year average. Winter, on the other hand, sells to people who book late: June's lead time of about 49 days is the shortest, so a fireplace in the first photos and a midweek or three-night offer put out five or six weeks ahead will do more than a discount posted in the week itself. Fireplaces are common here: 47 per cent of Bowral listings have one, 75 per cent in Bundanoon, and the Bowral listings that do average A$93,500 a year against A$57,400 for those without. A house that sells spring gardens, autumn walks, winter fires and summer weekends as four separate products has a reason to be booked in each, and a house that offers only 'a getaway in the Southern Highlands' competes on price alone.

The rules

Short-Stay Rules in Southern Highlands

The state, not the shire, sets the main short-stay rules (short-term rental accommodation, or STRA), and Wingecarribee follows the same framework as the rest of New South Wales. Since 1 November 2021 the Housing SEPP has counted a home let commercially for short periods as STRA: hosted when you are on the property while guests stay, non-hosted when you aren't. In a lawfully built dwelling where residential accommodation is permitted, STRA counts as exempt development, so no development application is needed as long as you meet the fire safety standard, register, follow the Code of Conduct and stay within any night limit.

The night limit is where the Highlands differs from the places around it. Non-hosted STRA is capped at 180 days in each 365-day period across the Greater Sydney region (the department's FAQ of May 2024 names Wollondilly, Camden, Campbelltown and the Blue Mountains among its councils), in the Ballina area, on certain Clarence Valley and Muswellbrook land, and, since 23 September 2024, at 60 days across most of Byron Shire. Wingecarribee is on none of those lists. The same FAQ says non-hosted STRA may run 365 days a year in every other council area, and a single booking of three weeks or more (21 consecutive days) never counts towards a cap. The Planning page, updated on 10 February 2025, said the government's review was still considering feedback and announced no change. I found no cap proposed for Wingecarribee in the pages I read, but treat this as a rule in flux and check the Planning Portal before you buy on the assumption that it stays that way. Our rules page sets the Highlands beside the other states.

Registration comes before advertising. The NSW Planning Portal's STRA Register is where you list the property, and the department's FAQ sets the fee at A$65 for the first 12 months and A$25 a year to renew. If you let a registration lapse, platform bookings are blocked and the property is de-registered three months later. Part of registering is declaring that the home meets the fire safety standard: mains-powered or long-life sealed-battery smoke alarms on each bedroom level and on other storeys, interconnected where there is more than one; an evacuation plan with exit signage, 000 and the Emergency+ app; and emergency information for guests. Dwellings in multi-unit buildings also need a keyless exit and a fire extinguisher and fire blanket in the kitchen, while a secondary dwelling above a garage needs an interconnected heat alarm in the garage. Councils enforce the standard. Separately, the Code expects you to carry cover for your liability if a guest or visitor is injured or killed on the premises.

The Code of Conduct for the industry has been mandatory since 18 December 2020, and NSW Fair Trading administers it for platforms, hosts, guests and letting agents. Hosts must tell directly neighbouring occupants, and any owners corporation, that the premises is used for STRA, and be reachable every day between 8 am and 5 pm for guest and neighbour issues, with a way to be reached for emergencies at other times. The Commissioner can issue a strike for deliberate and persistent breaches, such as fire safety (including overcrowding), planning approvals, parking or ongoing noise, and the exclusion register of guests and hosts began in August 2022. Complaints about ongoing noise, parking and planning go to the local council, criminal activity and urgent noise to NSW Police, and other Code matters to Fair Trading's complaint form. Wingecarribee Shire Council's own guidance is thin. Its 'Do I need approval?' guide lists 19 topics and short-term rental isn't one of them, though Change of Use, Secondary Dwellings and Bushfire Prone Land are. The only holiday-rental document I could open was the council's voluntary Holiday Rental Code of Conduct, version 2, from December 2014, which asks managers to display house rules, keep a local representative and after-hours contacts, avoid using a house as a function centre without council permission and advise no more than two adults per bedroom. It predates the state framework, so read it as a guide to what neighbours expect, not as law. The council also has a Berrima Gaol page for a redevelopment proposal, covered under the future heading.

An apartment or townhouse in a strata scheme adds another layer. NSW Government guidance lets the owners corporation pass a by-law that restricts STRA, but only for lots that are not the host's principal place of residence, and the same route can cap occupancy at two adults per bedroom. A lot that is your main home isn't caught by a restriction, so you can still let it while you're away. Most Highlands holiday homes are houses (68.6 per cent of Bowral's AirROI listings, against 4.7 per cent apartments), but Mittagong has more apartments and hotel-style stays, at 9 per cent and 24 per cent of its listings, so read the by-laws before you list a unit.

Tax and ownership rules come from Canberra and Sydney. Short-stay income is assessable. The ATO's newsroom item of 27 August 2026 introduced a rental package (TR 2026/1, PCG 2026/2 and PCG 2026/3) that covers holiday homes let through platforms. Under it, a Bowral cottage you also use yourself gets its big ownership deductions, such as interest, rates, body corporate fees and repairs, only if it is mainly an income-producing property, and the ATO looks at how often it is on offer in school holidays and other peak weeks. Booking commissions, advertising and the cleaning after a paying stay are deductible regardless, your own stays have to be apportioned out, and counting blocked-out days against rented days isn't enough by itself. The ATO also says residential rent carries no GST and the related costs carry no GST credits. NSW land tax is worked out on land value, and the principal-residence exemption doesn't reach a holiday home. From 1 January 2025 Revenue NSW fixed the thresholds at A$1,075,000 and A$6,571,000, and land value over the first figure is taxed at 1.6% on top of A$100. Foreign owners pay a 5% surcharge on land value with no tax-free threshold. Most foreign buyers are shut out of established dwellings from 1 April 2025 until 30 June 2029 (Treasury Guidance Note 6, version 5, dated 1 July 2026), and a foreign-owned home that is lived in or genuinely on offer to tenants for fewer than 183 days a year owes an annual vacancy fee; lets of under 30 days don't count towards that. I found no state or council levy on short stays in the pages I read. What I've written here is orientation rather than legal advice, and rules change, so confirm each one with the council, the NSW Planning Portal, the ATO and your accountant. Cavmir takes care of the marketing; registration, fire safety and tax stay with you and your advisers.

Marketing

Marketing a Holiday Home in Southern Highlands

What works here

First, sell the reason for the stay before the house. The Highlands has a clear set of reasons and each reaches a different guest: a fire and a long lunch in winter, the Tulip Time weekend in spring, walks in Morton National Park from Bundanoon, the Bradman Museum for a cricket family, gallery and museum visits at Ngununggula and Berrima for couples, and Berrima for people who want to stay somewhere they can walk to a pub. Put the reason and the walking distance in the title or first line, in kilometres or minutes, and put the fireplace in the first five photos, because 47 per cent of Bowral listings have one and those listings average more revenue than the ones without. AirROI's average Bowral listing carries 12 photos and only 38 per cent show the exact location, so thirty well-ordered photos with a map of the walk to the village will stand out.

Second, build one calendar for guests from Sydney and Canberra. Sydney sends about a fifth of the guests in each town and Canberra sends more to Bundanoon than to any other town here, so write separate offers for the two: a Friday-to-Sunday winter break for Sydney, a Sunday-to-Wednesday walking stay for Canberra in autumn. Most of the market accepts a single night (37 per cent) or a two-night minimum (55 per cent), so a two-night minimum on Tulip Time and Brigadoon weekends and a three-night minimum in the school holidays protects the best dates without turning away the quiet ones. Open the October and April dates early, since October is booked about 94 days ahead. A guest comparing the Highlands with Jervis Bay or the Blue Mountains is choosing between short drives from Sydney, and a listing that states its drive time and its reason for the trip answers the comparison for them.

Third, sell direct as well as on the platforms. Owners here list on platforms such as Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com (I couldn't load Stayz's site to confirm what is live there, so check it for your own listing). Each platform takes a share and sets its own rules, and guests who loved their stay have nowhere to rebook but the platform unless you give them somewhere else. A direct-booking website with the total price shown up front, a finished Google Business Profile and a mailing list of past guests lets the winter-weekend family book next year's weekend without the platform fee. If you want the regular posting and guest email handled for you, see our monthly plans.

Fourth, treat the guest experience as marketing. The bar is high: AirROI's Bowral average is 4.87 stars, Airbnb's Guest favourite badge sits on 61 per cent of listings, and value, at 4.74, is the lowest-scoring category. A cleaning fee of A$166 or more on a two-night stay needs a reason the guest can see, so put what they get into the description: the stocked wood box, the firelighters, the dog bed, the local map and the first-night basics. Check-in at 2 or 3 pm and check-out at 10 am are the market norm, so a later check-out for a long weekend is a cheap way to stand out. Keep to your registered capacity, as the Code of Conduct's strike system targets overcrowding, noise and parking, and tell guests where to park and which neighbours are close. A host who answers fast and keeps the house within its numbers protects the review score that drives the next booking.

What makes it hard

The first challenge is supply. Every Highlands market grew its listing count in the year to September 2026, from 11 per cent in Bundanoon to 23 per cent in Berrima, and revenue per listing did not follow in Moss Vale, where it fell 6.3 per cent. Hotels and boutique stays make up a fifth of Bowral's listings (20.4 per cent), so a house competes with places that have a front desk. A host answers by being specific about what the house is for. A four-bedroom with a fireplace, a long table and a fire pit that sleeps eight competes with other large houses on features, not with the cheapest cottage on price, and the large houses, the 33 per cent of Bowral listings that sleep eight or more, are where the biggest revenues sit.

The second is the seasonal dips and the midweek gap. February is the weakest month in Bowral and Moss Vale, May is Bowral's next-weakest, and Bowral's occupancy of 44.1 per cent means more than half of the nights are empty even in a good year. Winter bookings come late, and the weeks outside school holidays and festivals are where owners lose the most. The answer is a specific offer for each gap: a midweek rate for walkers and remote workers (44 per cent of Bowral listings have a dedicated workspace, and those average A$81,300 against A$68,600 without), a three-night winter package and a February weekend for guests who want warm days in the garden. None of those need a lower rate, only a reason to come.

The third is rules and neighbours. The state framework asks for registration, fire safety and a code of conduct, but the council's own 2014 code recognised noise, litter and parking problems in places with a lot of holiday renting, and the NSW code lets Fair Trading issue a strike for deliberate and persistent breaches on noise, parking, planning approvals or fire safety. Owners who live in Sydney or Canberra also find that remotely run houses drift, with tired photos, slow replies and a winter calendar nobody opens. A trusted local cleaner and manager, a clear set of house rules and a marketing plan that is current close that gap. Access is the last point: the council's strategy places the shire on the Hume Highway and the Southern railway line, and the villages are separated by farmland, so the listing needs plain directions and a plan for an arrival after dark.

Worth knowing. The Surveyor General Inn at Berrima was built in 1834 and licensed a year later, and it calls itself Australia's oldest continuously licensed inn. It stands in a village the Wingecarribee council's housing strategy describes as the last remaining, largely intact, Georgian-period town on mainland Australia, so a guest who walks to lunch is following travellers who have stopped here for nearly two centuries.
Money matters for Southern Highlands owners
Insurance

NSW Government guidance says the policy has to cover your liability for injury or death to third parties, must be current for the whole period a guest occupies the home, and should be read for its exclusions. The council's 2014 Holiday Rental Code gives the same advice, suggesting landlord's and public liability cover and telling the insurer the property is a holiday rental. A standard home and contents policy may not respond once paying guests are in the house, so put three questions to a broker: does it cover short stays, what does it say about guests' injuries and your own contents, and does a pool, fire pit, wood heater or hot tub change the answer. Check flood and bushfire mapping for your lot before you buy: the council's approval guide has a Bushfire Prone Land topic, and the fire safety standard expects emergency information for the property. I don't recommend products; a broker who writes holiday homes in Wingecarribee will know what local insurers ask.

Tax

Rental income is assessable. On the ATO's holiday homes page, the costs of owning and using the house (interest, rates, repairs) are claimable only when its main purpose is earning rent, whereas advertising, booking fees, commissions and cleaning after guest stays can be claimed whichever way it is used. Your own nights have to be apportioned out, and the ATO says blocked-out days set against rented days won't settle the question alone. A holiday home that is never rented has nothing to declare until it is sold, and then a capital gain or loss has to be worked out. For residential rent, the ATO says there is no GST in the charge and no GST credits on the costs. For 2025-26 the ATO's rate for foreign residents is 30c in the dollar up to A$135,000. Sofie isn't an accountant, so ask yours about the main-use test, GST and your own situation before you set your calendar.

Lending and land tax

Before you make an offer on a second home, find out from a mortgage broker whether a lender will count short-stay income at all. Cotality's data, shown on OnTheHouse as at 30 September 2026, puts Bowral's median house value at A$1,498,457 and its median unit value at A$941,100, with a median house rent of A$850 (the page doesn't label the period, so I've read it as weekly) and 299 sales in the last 12 months. These are automated estimates for the 2576 postcode, so use recent sales of comparable homes for any decision. Against that, AirROI's average Bowral listing grosses A$74,199, or A$45,729 after its estimate of running costs. If A$850 is a weekly rent, a long-let house would bring in about A$44,200 a year before the landlord's own costs. NSW land tax is charged on the value of the land, with a general threshold of A$1,075,000 from 1 January 2025, foreign owners pay a 5% surcharge with no threshold, and a surcharge on purchase duty applies too, which Revenue NSW's calculator will price. Foreign investors can't generally buy an established dwelling before 30 June 2029.

Your own website

A Direct-Booking Website for a Southern Highlands Home

A direct-booking website for a Southern Highlands home has to answer the guest's first questions quickly. The guest wants to know whether the house has a fire, how many it sleeps, how far it is from the village and whether the dog can come, then the total price and the dates. Lead with a gallery in the order a guest walks through the house, with the fireplace and the garden early, then the bedrooms and bed types, the distance to the village and the nearest shops in kilometres, and a short guide to the season: Tulip Time, autumn walks, winter fires and the school holidays. Pages worth writing beyond the property itself include a guide to Berrima for a weekend, walks from Bundanoon, a page for Tulip Time and one for Brigadoon, and an answer to 'what is there to do in winter'. These give guests, Google and AI assistants something specific to quote, and they give you pages that don't depend on a platform. Cavmir's website design work covers these pages and the booking system behind them.

Consumer law shapes the booking page. The ACCC's price displays page, dated 1 October 2026, says a business must show the total price as one figure: the least a customer could pay, with taxes, duties and unavoidable or pre-selected extras included. Its holiday-apartment example folds one per-person cleaning fee into the advertised nightly price. A separate drip-pricing ban starts on 1 July 2027. In practice, put the nightly rate and a clear total with the cleaning fee on the first screen instead of springing the fee at the last click. The ACCC took undertakings from Airbnb on 13 October 2015 over mandatory fees, cleaning fees included, that weren't shown up front. New South Wales adds the registration step: the Planning Portal says register before you advertise and display the STRA Property ID on the online listing, and AirROI records that 99 per cent of Bowral listings show a permit or registration number, so put yours on your own site as well. Finish the page with a privacy policy that states what you collect and why, plain cancellation terms and house rules, and your registered guest capacity.

The other part of a good booking page is the experience of paying. Use a booking engine your property management system supports, show the payment options clearly, and send a confirmation email that has the address, check-in time and the fire safety information sheet. The STRA fire safety standard asks for an evacuation plan and emergency information at the property, so the same material can sit on the website and in the welcome email. The page should work on a phone, load quickly and show the fireplace before the footer. Keep the calendar accurate and the minimum stays consistent with the platforms, and use the same photos and facts everywhere so a guest never finds two different stories.

AI search

Getting Named in AI Answers About Southern Highlands

Guests now ask AI assistants things like 'a dog-friendly cottage with a fireplace near Bowral for a winter weekend', 'where to stay in Berrima to walk to lunch' or 'a house for eight near Bundanoon for walkers'. The answer comes from sources the assistant can read and trust: a host's website that states the facts in plain sentences, a Google Business Profile that is complete and consistent, reviews that mention the same details, and pages about the place that don't contradict each other. A Highlands house that says how many it sleeps, how many minutes it is on foot from the village, whether dogs are allowed, whether the fireplace is wood or gas, when the nearest festival falls and what the total price is will be quoted more often than one that says 'charming country retreat'.

A host's site gets quoted when it pairs structure with specifics: one page per property with a short summary at the top, a facts table, a clear answer to the common questions, and local pages that tie the house to Tulip Time, Brigadoon, Morton National Park walks and Berrima. Keep your name, address, phone number and registration consistent across your site, Google and the platforms, and keep the hours, prices and dates current. Cavmir's guide to getting a holiday rental found by AI assistants covers the detail, and the method is the same for one cottage or a portfolio of houses.

What's next

Where Southern Highlands Is Heading

The biggest change in how guests reach the Highlands is the airport. Western Sydney International (Nancy-Bird Walton) Airport opened to passengers on Sunday 25 October 2026, when Jetstar flew the first commercial service, to the Gold Coast, according to The Nightly. The federal government's release of 10 June 2026 lists Air New Zealand flights to Auckland from 26 October, Singapore Airlines flying daily to Singapore from 23 November 2026 and Qantas starting on 28 March 2027. The Wingecarribee Local Housing Strategy had already flagged that the proposed Western Sydney Aerotropolis could add population and development pressure to the shire. For a host, the practical point is that a new gateway makes the Highlands easier to reach for visitors from interstate and overseas, who today are a small share of guests: 9 per cent of Bowral's guests are international, mostly from the United Kingdom, the United States and New Zealand. I can't say what the airport will do to demand, and nobody should promise it.

Rules and costs are the other things to watch, and some are dated. The NSW STRA review that began in 2024 had no published outcome on the pages I read, and Byron's 60-night cap shows the state will tighten night limits for one council area. The ATO's rental package announced on 27 August 2026 sharpens how holiday-home deductions are tested, so ask your accountant which income year it first touches. For foreign buyers, the ban on established homes lasts until 30 June 2029. On the ground, the council's page for Berrima Gaol describes an adaptive re-use proposal by the Blue Sox Group with about 60 hotel rooms, a restaurant, a wellness centre and function space; the page gives no status or timeline, so treat it as a proposal. The next fixed dates for the calendar are the Bundanoon Highland Gathering on 3 April 2027, and the next Tulip Time, whose dates weren't posted when I looked.

The shift that rewards preparation is in how people find a place to stay. Visitors ask assistants and search engines for a particular kind of house, and the listings that surface are the ones with clear, structured, current information behind them. The Highlands has an advantage here because its reasons to visit are specific and dated: a spring festival, an autumn Highland gathering, winter fires, Georgian Berrima and the national park walks at Bundanoon. An owner who writes those reasons into a website, a Google profile and a set of emails now will be better placed when the airport, the policy review and the competition change the market around them.

Why we like the work

Why We Love Marketing in Southern Highlands

What I love about marketing homes here is that so much of the story is already true. Berrima has an inn that has been licensed since 1835, Bundanoon has a Highland gathering that began in 1978 and Bowral has a spring festival that dates from 1958. When a listing says exactly what the house offers and what is close by, in place of generic country-retreat copy, it reaches the guest who is shopping for the Highlands rather than for any cottage, and that guest tends to rebook and to look after the place.

I also like the calendar's character. Spring is gardens and tulips, autumn is walking and the pipes at Bundanoon, winter is the fire and the long lunch, and summer is the school-holiday family stay. An owner who swaps one generic weekend pitch for four seasonal reasons to visit often finds nights and rate they already had. The work is noticing which of those reasons your house does best, saying it plainly, and making sure the guest who wants it can find it.

And the raw material is generous. A council that calls Berrima the last intact Georgian-period town on the mainland, a national park beside Bundanoon, a museum for cricket in Bowral, a regional gallery whose name means belonging in the Gundungurra language, and a position within about 150 km of Sydney and Canberra give a host more to say than a welcome book can hold. The work is to spot the true angle an owner has stopped noticing, get it to the guest who is already searching, and keep the facts straight so the stay matches the listing.

Welcome book

Picks for Your Southern Highlands Welcome Book

The picks Cavmir puts in a Southern Highlands welcome book: places checked against their own websites or official pages in October 2026, with the details guests ask about first. Hours and prices change, so each entry says what the source listed.

Morning

The Bradman Museum in Bowral

On St Jude Street, the museum lists opening from 9 am to 4 pm every day, closed on Good Friday and Christmas Day. Its price list shows adults A$30, children aged 5 to 17 A$16.50, under-fives free and a family of two adults and two children A$77, with a 10% surcharge on public holidays. Exhibits include Unstoppable, a display on women's cricket in Australia, and the Bradman Gallery.

Rainy day

Ngununggula, the regional art gallery

Ngununggula Southern Highlands Regional Gallery is at 1 Art Gallery Lane, Bowral, and lists daily opening, 10 am to 4 pm. The council says the name means 'belonging' in the language of the Gundungurra people. The gallery's site didn't state an admission price, so check before you tell guests it is free.

Spring

Tulip Time at Corbett Gardens

The festival says it has run since 1958. In 2026 it ran from 11 September to 5 October, with Bloomin' Weekends, a Dogs Day Out and a flower trail, free for kids, and tickets sold through Ticketmaster. The festival site hadn't posted 2027 dates when I read it, so tell guests 'mid-September to early October' and send them to the festival site.

Museum

Berrima District Museum

The Berrima District Historical Society's page lists the museum at 1A Market Place and Bryan Street, open Friday to Sunday from 10 am to 3 pm, with adults A$10, concessions A$8 and children with family free. Its January 2026 school-holiday special ran from 21 January to 1 February at half-price adult entry, and its exhibitions included Prisoners in Arcady, on the German internees held in Berrima during the First World War. Opening is limited to three days, so check the day before you send guests.

Lunch

Surveyor General Inn in Berrima

At 26 Old Hume Highway, the inn was built in 1834, licensed a year later and describes itself as Australia's oldest continuously licensed inn. Its website lists lunch from noon on weekdays to 2.30 pm and on weekends to 3 pm, and dinner from 5.30 pm to 8.30 pm, with hearty pub food and seating for up to 160. It sits in the village itself, so it works as a first stop on a walk.

Walk

Berrima village

The council's Local Housing Strategy says Berrima dates back to the 1830s and survives as the last remaining, largely intact, Georgian-period town on mainland Australia. Park once and walk the streets rather than driving between stops. The former gaol is the subject of a redevelopment proposal, so don't promise guests access to it.

Dinner

The Bundanoon Hotel

At 6-18 Erith Street, the hotel's website lists dinner from 5.30 pm Wednesday to Monday and lunch from noon Friday to Sunday, with a bistro menu that changes daily and woodfire pizza in the Brigadoon Bar on some nights. The pub's own history says the present building dates from 1922. The site's copyright line read 2021, so ring before you promise a table.

Bushwalk

Morton National Park from Bundanoon

NSW National Parks lists the Bundanoon area at A$8 per vehicle per day and describes the park as always open, though bad weather or fire danger can close it. Its page names Tooth's walking track to Bundanoon Creek and a Bundanoon cycling route. Parts of the south-eastern area were used for military training and may contain unexploded artillery shells, so tell guests to stay on marked tracks and check the park's alerts before they go.

April

The Bundanoon Highland Gathering

Brigadoon began in 1978 and its next date is Saturday 3 April 2027, according to the NSW Government's events listing. The 2025 gathering ran from 8 am to 4.30 pm at Bundanoon Oval on Erith Street, with a street parade at 9 am, pipe bands, Highland dancing, the heavyweight championship and courtesy buses from the village. The organisers advise checking times and tickets closer to the date, so confirm them before you send guests.

History

Bong Bong, where settlement began

The council's housing strategy says the first settlement, Bong Bong, dates from around 1820 to 1821 and stood on the Moss Vale Road between Moss Vale and Burradoo beside the Wingecarribee River, and that an obelisk marks the site. It is a roadside marker with no opening hours, a short stop rather than a day out.

The playbook

How Cavmir Would Market Three Southern Highlands Homes

Cavmir has no clients in Southern Highlands 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 country house in Burradoo or Exeter
The situation

A house on a large block that sleeps eight, has a wood fire and a deck, and is advertised as 'a country retreat' with twelve photos, one nightly rate all year and a cleaning fee that stings on two-night stays.

The plan

Confirm the STRA registration, fire safety standard and capacity first, then rebuild the listing around who it suits: Sydney families and friends for a winter weekend, a spring garden stay for Tulip Time and a school-holiday week. Put the fire, the table that seats eight and the drive to Bowral and Berrima in the first photos, add pet and workspace details, set a two-night minimum on festival weekends and a midweek rate, and build a direct-booking page that starts collecting past guests' emails.

What it targets

Aims to lift the rate on festival and school-holiday dates and to put guests into midweek winter nights. Track registered capacity and complaints (the goal is none), the winter midweek bookings, review value scores, direct bookings and returning guests.

Two-bedroom cottage in Berrima or Bundanoon
The situation

A cottage that couples and walkers like, listed with a generic title and no walking distances, taking most of its bookings on one platform and quiet from May to September outside the school holidays.

The plan

Rewrite the title and first lines around what is within walking distance, with the pub and village in Berrima or Morton National Park and the Brigadoon date in Bundanoon, and shoot the fire, the bed and the garden in each season. Build a three-night winter package, a Canberra walking-stay offer and a Brigadoon weekend page, add the total price and the fire safety information to the website, and send past guests a note when the festival dates are posted.

What it targets

Designed to reduce winter gaps and bring in Canberra and Sydney couples who plan a trip around an event. Track bookings for the winter package, occupancy from May to September against the previous year, enquiries from the Brigadoon page and the share of direct bookings.

Three-bedroom house in Mittagong or Moss Vale
The situation

A family house a few minutes from the shops and the station, rented through a co-host, with photos from years ago, a high cleaning fee and a calendar that stops three weeks out.

The plan

Refresh the photos and the listing description, move the cleaning fee into a clearer total price, open the calendar six months ahead so October and April book early, and write pages for the Bowral gallery, the Berrima museum and the school holidays. Add a simple direct-booking site that shows the total price on the first screen, and send past guests a short monthly note listing the next three free weekends.

What it targets

Intended to earn bookings earlier in the calendar and to sell the school holidays and weekends at a clearer total price. Track lead time, review value scores, the cleaning-fee complaints (the goal is none) and the share of repeat and direct guests.

FAQ

Southern Highlands Airbnb Marketing: Questions, Answered

Does Cavmir offer Airbnb and holiday-home marketing in Southern Highlands?

Yes. Cavmir works with owners and managers from Bowral, Burradoo and Exeter to Mittagong, Moss Vale, Berrima, Sutton Forest and Bundanoon: listings, photography direction, direct-booking websites, Google and AI search, social posts and guest email. The work is done remotely for Australian owners. Cavmir is a marketing agency, so cleaning, check-ins, registration and fire safety stay with you or your local manager.

What do holiday rentals earn in the Southern Highlands?

AirROI's figures for Bowral in the twelve months to September 2026 are an average of A$74,199 a listing, A$579 a night and 44.1 per cent occupancy, with 191 listings. The nearby towns on their own AirROI pages range from A$54,532 in Mittagong to A$69,853 in Berrima, with Burradoo and Exeter higher in AirROI's nearby-markets table at A$81,919 and A$79,190. The range inside Bowral is wide, with a median listing earning about A$5,280 a month and the top quarter A$9,240 or more. These are market averages, not a forecast: a home's size, features, photos and calendar decide where it lands in that range.

When is demand highest in the Southern Highlands?

In AirROI's Bowral data the best months are October, July and April. October 2025 earned A$8,347 a listing at 51.2 per cent occupancy, July 2026 earned A$8,650 at the year's highest rate of A$643, and April 2026 reached 49.2 per cent. Tulip Time, the Bundanoon Highland Gathering and the NSW school holidays shape those peaks, and February is the quietest month.

Is there a limit on how many nights I can rent my Southern Highlands home?

On the state's published lists, Wingecarribee has no night cap for non-hosted short-term rental accommodation. The 180-night cap covers Greater Sydney councils such as Wollondilly, plus Ballina and parts of two other areas, and most of Byron Shire is limited to 60 nights from 23 September 2024. The department's FAQ says everywhere else may run 365 days a year. A development consent on your property or a strata by-law can still set its own limit, and the state's review of day limits had no published outcome on the Planning page last updated in February 2025.

What do I need before I list a home in the Southern Highlands?

In New South Wales you register the property on the Planning Portal before you advertise (A$65 for the first 12 months, A$25 a year to renew), declare that the home meets the STRA fire safety standard, follow the mandatory Code of Conduct and hold insurance covering liability for third-party injury and death. In a strata scheme, read the by-laws first. Cavmir looks after marketing; confirm each rule with the council and the Planning Portal.

Who books Southern Highlands holiday homes?

Mostly Australians. AirROI puts 91 per cent of Bowral's guests as domestic, with Sydney the largest single origin at 19.1 per cent and Canberra next at 3.0 per cent. The United Kingdom sends 3.1 per cent and the United States 1.4 per cent. Guests book about 67 days ahead and stay 3.1 nights on average, so most of them are planning a short break a couple of months out.

Can I rent out an apartment or unit in the Southern Highlands?

Often yes, but a by-law can stop you. NSW Government guidance says an owners corporation can restrict STRA in lots that aren't the host's main home and can set two adults per bedroom. Apartments are a small part of the Highlands market, 4.7 per cent of Bowral's listings and 9 per cent of Mittagong's in AirROI's data, so read the by-laws before you buy or list, and check the multi-unit fire safety items too.

How much does Cavmir cost for a Southern Highlands home?

It depends on scope. Current Australian plans and one-off projects are on the pricing page, shown in Australian dollars. Talking it through costs nothing: contact Cavmir.

Get a quote

Tell Us About Your Southern Highlands Holiday Home

Which home, which town, and where it lists today. A written proposal in A$ follows within 48 hours.

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