Looking into purchasing a vacation rental as an investment property/personal use. Have not seen much action on here from anywhere in the area and figured I would throw it out there if anyone have any solid info on the area I would appreciate it as I live in California.
Thanks in advance.
@Michael Greenberg Great tip on the airdna.co link!
@Kyle S. There is defiantly a big market for short term rentals here for sure. I just purchased my 1st home here in Havasu so I am trying to figure out my finances to get a 2nd property as a rental in about a year. Not to be intrusive, but I would love to see what types of properties and what you are figuring for numbers. You can PM me if you would rather not post them. I have no money for a deal right now so not trying to swoop in. Just trying to learn as well.
I have investments in the Phoenix area but no direct exposure to Lake Havasu. My recommendation is to look to airdna.co (not .com). In a quick search I found quite a few successful properties. You can browse some basic data for free and then if you want purchase data for the area (buy the raw data not their reports) and analyze it for yourself. They also recently launched a new investment tool. While they only mine data from Airbnb it does provide a good gauge for rental rates, property types and investment opportunities.
Hey Kyle,
I grew up in Anaheim and have lived in Havasu for 5yrs now. I am just getting my feet wet with real estate. Havasu is a very unique market place as far as investing goes I am finding out the more I research/learn. There are quite a few listings for Havasu on Airbnb and VRBO. You could used those as a quick gauge to see what stuff is renting out here by the week. I myself am not interested in vacation rentals because I see the people who rent from out of town and how they treat properties and also the high tenant turnover. Questions I think you should ask yourself are:
What size property are you looking to get into/what is rentable at a profit?
Will there be money to be made on your purchase? (Havasu market is pretty hot right now)
How will you manage tenant turnover? (Getting the property cleaned/damages fixed)
How are you going to get tenants between Summer/Winter? (drastic change in demographic here between the seasons)
ETC.
I have been keeping an eye out for a second property to buy as a buy and hold and to me nothing seems to make cense with the numbers. Duplexs are going for $300K+ to $400K and rents are $800-$1200/month depending on the unit condition.
@Mike Hottinga Yea I actually am from and currently reside in Anaheim currently and spend most of my vacations in Havasu, I actually will be there for a week in late June. I have been looking at a lot of the for sale houses and based on using a 40% occupancy rate which seems to be the lowest end as the market according to what I have read and what is posted on airdna.co like suggested by @Michael Greenberg suggest closer to 60% on a single family home would be at the very least a break even if you take into account a few major issues, if the year goes smoothly it should be profitable, I have run actual numbers but not to bore you with those from what I have seen on the vrbo side it should be positive. On the otherside, since I do have a pretty solid job and am in an extremely high tax bracket which I just found out was up there based on my last taxes would be also able to take advantage of a property like this as a tax benefit as well as the profits from the rentals as well. The main factor that I have truly not taken into account and or done the hard research on is the cleaning and maintenance on the property however I do have a cousin who lives in the area that may be an asset on this side if I do pull the trigger, but the property I am going to be staying at in June is owned by a lady here in CA that manages the properties(3) from here and has cleaning crews there so I know there is a market for this type of thing in the area.
I have noticed on the regular rent side traditional houses would not be huge if at all large profit centers however I have narrowed down a handful of properties that based on my personal knowledge could be great properties, though based on you @Mike Hottinga actually living there I may be very far off and just using the vacation bias to make these decisions.
Regardless thanks for both of your inputs I am so knew at this and so interested that I had to throw something against the wall and see if anyone else in the world was knowledgable or interested in this process.
@Michael Greenberg Great tip on the airdna.co link!
@Kyle S. There is defiantly a big market for short term rentals here for sure. I just purchased my 1st home here in Havasu so I am trying to figure out my finances to get a 2nd property as a rental in about a year. Not to be intrusive, but I would love to see what types of properties and what you are figuring for numbers. You can PM me if you would rather not post them. I have no money for a deal right now so not trying to swoop in. Just trying to learn as well.
@Kyle S. We own a couple of condos on the river right up the road in Bullhead City. We rent them out as short term rentals and do very well with them. The snowbirds love it out there and we have had the same tenants (mostly from Canada) book month plus stays year in and year out.
We self manage and have a local handyman and cleaning lady that we use. One thing we just discovered that cut down our expenses big time was installing NEST thermostats in both units since often times people forget to turn them back up when they leave and we can control and program them remotely.
I am looking out in the Laughlin/Bullhead market since we're already there but seems to be A LOT more activity than in recent years.
All the Best,
Scotty
@Kyle S. Curious if you moved forward with a purchase? We also live in CA and considering a STR/vacation home in Havasu. I don't know enough about the rents and demand to run good numbers - other what I've seen on AirDNA and Airbnb/VRBO. There seems to be a lot of properties available for rent at any given time -seems like it would be hard to stand out.
Is the economy growing there - is there a demand for long term rentals at all? I follow the Planning Commission/ City Council agendas and I know there is a huge development in the works - Havasu Riviera - that will include marina/hotel -single and multi family units. Wonder if that will drive down prices with the increase in supply or if there is enough demand to keep up? Hopefully, they will get things built before interest rates and construction costs go up too much!
Thanks for any feedback on the Havasu rental market in 2018..