Our Poconos experience - purchase in 2024

[Dean Waite]

I posted this as a reply to someone else sharing their #'s, thought it was worth sharing as its own post as well.

After nearly two years of kicking the STR tires we pulled the trigger in 2024. My wife agreed(somewhat nervously and maybe a little reluctantly) to make this purchase her project. We did a bunch of market research, actually visited Galveston and Blue Ridge, GA for the first time. Really wanted to buy in FL(my personal favorite for visiting.) But, we ended up buying in the Poconos due to "bang for buck" price to rent #'s.

Closed in mid 2024 and brought it online just before Christmas. It took some extra time for my wife to run the rehab from 2000 miles away(we live in Idaho.) After one full year of operating here are our rough #'s.

PP $425,000 Rehab/design/furnishing $90,000 All-in $515,000. We used about $300k from a 1031 exchange and have a mortgage of $140k.

2025 gross rents $97k (100 % Airbnb)

2025 Expenses total(including everything) $75k

Net cash in pocket $22k

This is with my wife self managing from 2000 miles away. I think we will be able to reduce our expenses in this second year and should be able to put 25-30k in our pocket for 2026, assuming we have the same rents(so far so good). We also have some tax benefit, mortgage buy down and appreciation that does not show up here. So far we are happy with our purchase. Although my wife is pissed about getting her first less than 5* review almost exactly one year after we came online(actually got two 4* in a row in DEC 2025.)

[Drew Sygit]

Quote from @Basit Siddiqi:

Hmmms, I am sketpical and I don't think the numbers make it a good investment.

1) if you passed it to a property management company, they would likely ask for 20% - 30% fee which would be $20,000 to $30,000 making the investment break even or lose money.
Maybe some of the $75,000 expenses are one-time expenses and won't reoccur. It is not certain without getting a breakdown.

2) $22,000 on a $300,000 investment is about 7.25%
This 7.25% likely required hundred's of hours of time of either you or your spouse.

3) You may get some tax benefit / savings from this - Uncertain of the amount.

I personally would not call this a win unless you can either scale down the expenses or increase the revenue in future years.

 It's actually worse: $515k all-in for that $22k.

22/515 = 4.27% ROI

Hopefully, the 2nd year dramatically increases income and reduces expenses.