What tools do you use to choose your next house?

Question

I'm curious what people end up doing for making a purchase. Having an STR nowdays is extremely competitive. If you're not in the top 10% then you're not making the correct ROI. AirDNA and Rabbu source from top competitors with a bedroom/bathroom count. They don't give you the road to joining that compset and being competitive and what it takes.

Curious what signals people use before investing into STRs.

Bruce Woodruff · Answer

No 'tools'...... Just old-fashioned research and drive by's....That will beat your tools every day.

John Underwood · Answer

That and I use Excel to analyze the numbers.

Mike Grudzien · Answer

P.S. Akash,Just curious, you've been on BiggerPockets for 5 years and have a blank profile. What do you do in real estate...?

Collin Hays · Answer

Tools...my go-to is an inexpensive cordless drill I picked up at Harbor Freight with a 40% off coupon. I look for reasons to use it at my rentals.

Andrew Steffens · Answer

I use AirDNA and Rabbu but to find the appropriate range for the most similar properties to the subject property. I then run it conservatively. This combined with experience I know what works in today's market and what it takes to get it there.

Mike Grudzien · Answer

I'm low-tech. I use experience and common sense...

Matthew Tregoning · Answer

The two homes you already operate give you a useful place to start: the questions guests keep asking. Parking, sleeping arrangements, where everyone eats. Those details get lost in a bed/bath comp set. I'd be curious which questions differ most between Coachella and Oakhurst.

Akash Kakumani · Answer

just updated my profile with a bio with the same!

Akash Kakumani · Answer

Hey sorry for the late response! I clearly am not as active as I'd like to be.

I own two STRs - one in Coachella and one in Oakhurst. We intend on expanding those. On top of that my wife is newly a STR Realtor. Coming from a Software Engineering backround - specializing in big data problems for the last 10 years - I want to be able to enhance her workflows with data driven tooling whether by my creation or existing.

When I first joined bigger pockets I thought I was going to enter LTRs/Duplex's and that kinda stuff. Due to some very good years with my tech job - minimizing taxes was an incentive and I found STRs the correct path for me with the STR tax loophole.

Anyways sorta rambling but that hopefully explains why I have 3 years with no activity. For the past 2 years I've had the Airbnbs though and never updated my profile. For the past 6 months - my wife became a realtor and thus I started being slightly more active on bigger pockets.

JD Martin · Answer

😅 . Although I highly recommend Hitachi's stuff (Metabo) - much better quality than HF, especially their battery life.

What tools do you use to choose your next house?

What tools do you use to choose your next house?

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