Deal Analysis Looks Off for West Virginia Investment: New STR Investor

[Anirud Nahar]

Hi Everyone! 

I am new to real estate investing and am looking at a Short Term rental opportunity. Ran some initial numbers using the Bigger Pockets STR calculator and the cash flow looks really poor so I want to sanity check my analysis with the experts here as I might be too conservative in some places. I attached the calculator I am using.

A bit about the market I am looking at: 
I am looking at the town of Berkeley Springs, WV. It is a town relatively close to where my parents live in Maryland (I am there a lot) and wanted my first investment to be a bit closer to me. It is a solid market at a 94/100 airdna rating with demand drivers including it's spas (actually known as "America's First Spa"), proximity to hiking (with great fall foliage), it's small town art scene, and numerous festivals throughout the year. The town and state of West Virginia as a whole is also relatively light on the short term rental regulation side based on my research. The listing I found is within an HOA community with numerous top performing STRs.

[Andrew Steffens]

Im seeing some expenses I dont agree with/think are necessary:

- Internet at $150 - seems high.  I do not know WV but here Verizon Fios is $50-60 and Spectrum is $50 to start and ends up closer to $100.

- Security at $30 - I do not have security at any house.  They tend to cause problems people setting them off.  Dont think this is necessary.

- Accounting and Tax prep @ $100 each / $200 total - seems high.  You can do your own books with only 1 property and just pay for prep IMO.

- Your whole marketing budget is a waste of money.  You will have a major negative return if you think $50/mo to google and meta will make your compete against the ad spend of Airbnb/VRBO.  Save the money.  Also do not pay content creators.

- You do not need any software to run 1 property.  1 exception is perhaps pricing.

This alone gets your to about breakeven at least.