Anyone here own in this area? I grew up here and it is my DREAM to own a lakefront home on Keowee. It is not NOT STR friendly, but I'm curious about seasonality and occupancy...the good and the bad. TIA!
P.S. We are already buying in proven markets (PF, Destin, possibly Blue Ridge)
Investor · Greer, SC · Member since 2014 · 13k+ posts · 17k+ votes
5y
We get a lot of bookings related to Clemson. You can boat from our dock to Clemson for a football game or graduation. We have Clemson graduation booked for this year at $600/night.
Property Manager · Cleveland, OH · Member since 2015 · 699 posts · 799 votes
5y
Hi Billie - I ran some numbers for you because I was curious. I picked a random house for sale in Salem, near the lake, but tweaked the # of bedrooms and guests. Here's what I came up with:
3-bed, 6 guests: $46,000 gross
4-bed, 8 guests: $73,000 gross
5-bed, 10 guests: $87,000 gross
6-bed, 12 guests: $98,000 gross
6-bed, 14 guests: $102k gross
And it starts to level off after that. Obviously these are just projections based on a data-aggregation service, so take them with a grain of salt and verify them with more research, but hopefully it helps a little!
This seems like exactly the type of community that would bad STRs though, so I'd definitely be diligently researching local laws.
Rental Property Investor · Atlanta, GA · Member since 2020 · 9 posts · 6 votes
5y
I want to know this, too! I'd be happy breaking even on Keowee, honestly (as long as we can use it once in a while!) We've been looking for over a year on Keowee and it is just sky rocketing. Hard to find STR eligible homes especially under $1mil, which I'm sure you have seen. We've moved on to Blue Ridge in our search as the numbers make more sense. Forever keeping my eyes open on Keowee lakefront, though!
Lake Keowee has always been expensive, but I just saw a log cabin sale for less than $500k and it peaked my interest. I'd break even too just to have someone pay off the mortgage and us stay there every quarter.
Investor · Greer, SC · Member since 2014 · 13k+ posts · 17k+ votes
5y
I have a house on Lake Hartwell nearby. We stay booked on Vrbo.
Hartwell is much bigger and more cost effective to buy on. Plus I don't think you will get a rental premium on rents. Someone coming down for a week see a nice lake house with private dock. They don't know the difference between the 2 lakes. Plus there are several restaurants right in the lake and multiple marinas.
Just make sure you buy on good water because it can fluctuate more than Keowee, but this has never been an issue for us.
Investor · Greer, SC · Member since 2014 · 13k+ posts · 17k+ votes
5y
We get a lot of bookings related to Clemson. You can boat from our dock to Clemson for a football game or graduation. We have Clemson graduation booked for this year at $600/night.
Thanks John! I agree about visitors and the lakes. However, being a native I personally want to own on Keowee while someone else pays for it until we retire. Ha!
With that said- fear of HOA changing rules is real on Keowee. I might expand my search to Hartwell.
Investor · SC · Member since 2020 · 43 posts · 32 votes
5y
@JohnUnderwood
Hi John, I live in Greenville, SC and currently own STR's in Pigeon Forge and Hilton Head. I am curious about the lake area. Quite a few years ago I had a second home in Keowee Key but at the time wasn't paying attention to the STR world. How do you know what areas will even allow STR's in Keowee Key? And does it make more sense to just focus on Hartwell? If so, I have the same question. How do you know the best place to buy STR's in the Lake Hartwell area? I imagine there are many areas that don't allow STR's.
@Nancy Benderi'm a Realtor, and to my knowledge the only units in Keowee Key that allow STR's are townhomes- not single family. There are communities like Harbor Point that do allow short term rentals.
@Nancy Benderi'm a Realtor, and to my knowledge the only units in Keowee Key that allow STR's are townhomes- not single family. There are communities like Harbor Point that do allow short term rentals.
Will you are responding to a post from 3 years ago....
I always wonder how/why people find ancient threads and decide to reply to them . . .
It seem to always be someone new and I guess they see a thread they feel like they can join in on not seeing the date. One of the problems with BP is the search function. It is absolutely the worst search function of any forum, well of anything. When you search for something your results come back in a random order and you will see responses from 3 years ago show up on the front page of results and stuff from 2 weeks ago show up 3 pages later. I think that is helping with this here anyway.