Let's hear your best STR story

[Collin Hays]

Oops, I meant "hear"...

So in 2010, I did what everyone tells you not to do:  I cashed out my entire 401K and after penalties and taxes, I had about $270K remaining.  I then used that to pay cash for two log cabins, side-by-side, in the Gatlinburg area.  They have been producing annual yets from $50-$55K ever since.  

In 2012, I bought I purchased a 200-year old cabin next to a river in Gatlinburg for $210K, but $20K in it, and I made about $28-30K a year in rents on it.  But...in the Gatlinburg fires a few years ago, it burned to the ground.  It took me two years but I finally built a brand new, genuine log cabin in its place.  But I had to spend about $330K to build and furnish it.  Last year was the first year renting it and it did $59K.  This year I am hoping for $65K.

How do these returns stack up to what some of you are experiencing?  

[Justin Tahilramani]

In 2017 I bought two mobile homes from FEMA and set them up on a farm we own outside of Fayetteville, NC (Fort Bragg). They were only about a year old when we got them. The govt used them to house displaced families during the NC floods a few years back. We had just over $25k in each of them by the time I had them moved, blocked/underpinned, installed septic, water, etc. We use them as short term rentals on our farm. They have been 100% occupied since we put them into service.

Sure they are a depreciating asset, but by the time they aren't worth anything anymore they will have paid for themselves several times over.