Too Many Hotel Rooms in B/CS

5,255 Views | 32 Replies | Last: 6 yr ago by murphyag
ro828
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The lead story on KBTX at 10 PM tonight was about how there were way too many vacant hotel rooms in the area for a SEC football weekend.

Is anyone surprised? Hotels have been springing up like mushrooms. There's such a thing as over saturation. I wonder if the same is true on the vacancy rates for apartments in the area. If so, maybe we'll see a drastic fall in rent costs.

http://www.kbtx.com/content/news/Hotel-stays-lower-than-expected-for-SEC-home-opener-448840033.html
australopithecus robustus
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Same thing for restaurants. I've been saying it...
rsa
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AG
On the hotel side, there has been an increase in the number of rooms. It will be interesting to see if the vacancy rate is steady across the season. I wonder if part of this weekend's vacancies are due to folks still cleaning up from Harvey who either came in for the day only, or who skipped the game all together. There appeared to be a number of empty seats at Kyle Field last night.
techno-ag
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AG
I wonder how it affected the BnB and VRBO crowd. Anybody who does online house rentals care to comment?
halibut sinclair
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AggieAces06
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AG
Part is over saturation, but part is that the team is having a down season. Lots of empty seats means not as many people are going to the game.
AgProgrammer
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AG
They also said that the average room rate went from $400 to mid $200s. That's still plenty high for hotels, especially in BCS. I think we were just at a point of being so under supplied on rooms after the move to the SEC that the market is finally catching up back to a point of "normal". And as AggieAces06 said, the team hasn't exactly been overwhelming leading up to this game. The university literally gave away a ton of tickets after Harvey and the prices for tickets on Flash Seats this past weekend were still very cheap.

If the team starts doing better, that demand will pick back up. The hotels won't get too much sympathy from me over mid $200/night room rates though.
O.G.
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Interesting, because I know of two fairly major hotels in town that were over booked for this weekend and are WAY over booked for the Bama game weekend.
texasaggie04
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AG
techno-ag said:

I wonder how it affected the BnB and VRBO crowd. Anybody who does online house rentals care to comment?


Didn't affect me, but I find airbnb to be far more cost efficient than any hotel. I rented my place for $450 to eight people. Per person, that's half the cost of any hotel plus you get a whole house.
PS3D
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I would probably say it's also due to the fact that maybe Kyle Field's occupancy is just not as popular as predicted. The big question is if any of our local hotels convert to dorms or cheap apartments.
Orlando Ayala Cant Read
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AG
Game weekends will be fine for most part for these hotels.

But there's going to be about 100 days a year where a lot of the older properties especially are going to start suffering in a big way.
victory
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AG
PS3D said:

I would probably say it's also due to the fact that maybe Kyle Field's occupancy is just not as popular as predicted. The big question is if any of our local hotels convert to dorms or cheap apartments.
No need to do that....the rental property in CS is saturated as well. Give 2-3 years and the housing market will crash too.... everybody just keeps building. Its gonna all catch up soon
CS78
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victory said:


No need to do that....the rental property in CS is saturated as well. Give 2-3 years and the housing market will crash too.... everybody just keeps building. Its gonna all catch up soon

The rental market is already suffering and will only get worse. The middle class, owner occupied housing market's not going anywhere. Severe lack of building while young families continue to slowly but steadily pour in to town.
Oogway
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Our neighbors whose daughter and son in law were trying to find a home were able to buy one recently; it was formerly a rental that went on the market for sale in CS. They were so happy. They didn't want a far southside home due to daycare/work locations. This is where Bryan has an advantage sometimes (IMO) in homes for young families that don't want to rent, nor mind buying an older home. So many of the landlords in CS are uninterested in selling, but the ones that are can find buyers like the ones I mentioned above. I guess it depends on how you forsee the housing market vs how and in what you wish to invest? Whatever the case, this one seemed to turn out satisfactory to both parties.
aggiepaintrain
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AG
wait and see what happens if sumlin is back next year.
Cyp0111
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There are a lot of properties that albeit new have old, dated interiors that have less than sufficient amenities for the price point.

There are numerous properties that need a refurb if they want to maintain their occupancy levels. The market will be set by the newer properties (Aloft, George, CC, Stella) and the rest will need to figure out what price point and length of stay minimums will generate sufficient cash flow.
InMyOpinion
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AggieAces06 said:

Part is over saturation, but part is that the team is having a down season. Lots of empty seats means not as many people are going to the game.


Down season?? Damn those 5-0 starts, we loose one game and it's a down season
CollegeStationMaid
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I have 11 vacation rentals I clean in BCS. Many of them have had to drastically lower their rates from last year in order to get bookings this year. I have 2 that rented for $1,000 a night easily last year and they are only getting anout half this year. Several of my smaller ones weren't getting any bookings so I looked at the sites and did some comparisons. Last week I went back and gave the owners some comps to look at. They lowered the rate and are at least booked for this weekend. After all, if they don't make money I don't make money either so it's a win-win situation. This just shows the difference between last year and this year.

I've talked to a few other people that rented their personal home out and they are having the same issues with getting bookings this year
F. Fletch
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AG
I have a guest house that I put on VRBO and have always rented for the big weekends. I have not raised my prices and have had nobody even interested this year. I attribute it to the overbuilding of hotels (and the UCLA game didn't help)
Tom Hagen
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AG
There are not too many hotel rooms. The prices are too high to clear the market.
gopitt
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The Ags are only averaging about 100,000 per game. Nothing wrong with attendance. There are problems with the product and the coaching.
AggieAces06
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AG
InMyOpinion said:

AggieAces06 said:

Part is over saturation, but part is that the team is having a down season. Lots of empty seats means not as many people are going to the game.


Down season?? Damn those 5-0 starts, we loose one game and it's a down season


It's not just the win/lose record that decides how the season is going. The play hasn't been to the anticipated level. We should have blown away the small schools, but instead let them hang in the game. We had to come from behind to win our two SEC games.
rcannaday
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AG
Houston has been hit very hard with the oil downturn, and now with a hurricane. I imagine a lot of people's pocketbooks lack allot of expendable cash to pay for hotel rooms, versus a day trip. And as stated low expectations for the season --> lower ticket sales and hotel sales.
jja79
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AG
gopitt said:

The Ags are only averaging about 100,000 per game. Nothing wrong with attendance. There are problems with the product and the coaching.
What does that have to do with the topic? This isn't a football thread.

When capacity was 80K and attendance 75K or so hotels could charge whatever they want and and require two nights. Now with capacity at 102K and attendance near 100K they've eliminated the 2 night minimum and rates have declined. In my opinion that's a function of over supply and the ridiculous rates plus 2 night minimum driving more people to look at other weekend options which include buying a home in BCS, taking a long term rental in BCS or purchasing an RV.

gopitt
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I was replying to the poster talking about a down year and empty seats. 100,000 is a great average with the SEC schedule expected to ramp attendance even more.
I'm thrilled with more hotels as most should be. Better prices and availability.
Captn_Ag05
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AG
Posted this on a different thread earlier this month, but it is applicable here so wanted to re-share.

According to this podcast, Embassy Suites will open on October 2.

https://blog.cstx.gov/2017/09/21/podcast-hotel-folklore-how-embassy-suites-built-across-from-am/

Also, a bit of discussion regarding concerns about too many hotels and the future of College Station from the developer that led the Embassy Suites project.
techno-ag
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AG
gopitt said:

I was replying to the poster talking about a down year and empty seats. 100,000 is a great average with the SEC schedule expected to ramp attendance even more.
I'm thrilled with more hotels as most should be. Better prices and availability.
Yup. Supply is meeting demand, and prices are dropping accordingly. This is good for visitors, methinks.
halibut sinclair
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Oogway
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Well, letting the small schools stay in the game may not be best practice, but it makes it interesting at least.

The market will adjust to the numbers and rates.
91_Aggie
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AG
I've got a question... are most of the the responders on this thread hotel/motel owners/employees?

Why are people worried about this unless they own a hotel in town?
Oogway
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Are you new to the Aggieland thread?
(Removed:11023A)
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AG
Hotels are doing fine in this town. The town has grown to the point that there are tons of things going on in town outside of football.

armymom
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I don't feel bad for the hotels. People know they charge high prices on event weekends and would rather drive home than pay that. If the hotels want to fill their rooms charge lower rates.! I'm sure people would like to spend 2 nights in BCS for events but with high football ticket/parking prices they can't choose both most of the time!
murphyag
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AG
We got sick of being fleeced by the local hotels on game weekends. So, now we either drive in and drive back home at night or drive up to the family lakehouse and stay there. I miss spending whole weekends in BCS, but we finally stopped after years of paying 300-400 a night with 2nt minimum required by the hotels. We're actually able to pay for a very nice additional week long vacation now with our savings from the BCS hotel racket. I feel no sorrow for the local hotels. They've been taking advantage of aggies for years.
MurphyAG
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