All Forum Posts by: Bonnie Low

Quote from @Myles Berrio:

@Caleb Christopher exactly!! I never said I was closing on this deal but merely a deal I was looking at and thought it would be a great discussion on why someone would or wouldn't close on to help reveal all kinds of different perspectives. I'm sure there is a ton of value here in the Bigger Pockets forum but definitely seems like unfortunately growth in numbers has been the baseline rather than upholding a positive and helpful culture. Thanks Bonnie! I make sure that all of my underwriting takes in account the lowest level of income being long-term rentals and even worst case if it had to sit vacant for 3-6 months, but love that you shared such great insight! This was a post to encourage positive discussion not assumptions and ego. You rock! 

 I'm not really sure why the conversation went so sideways but there are certain subjects that trigger very strong opinions. Generally, I think people are just trying to be helpful. I'm glad I could be anyway. 

Hi, Myles - a couple of thoughts for you:  First, have you take into consideration South Carolina's property taxes for non-owner occupied properties? If you're using the current property taxes to underwrite your deal you're going to need to 3x that approximately. They are exceptionally high for non-owner occupied properties. This might not come up because you're doing sub-to, but it certainly may and definitely will if you have to refinance it or end up selling to an investor. 

Second, $5k/month in Greenville for a 3/2 sounds like best case scenario but not a number I'd use for my underwriting. I personally underwrite conservatively for MTRs, using 1.5x - 2x long term rents. You may get those highly coveted insurance placements but I'd want to really understand the demand before using that as the baseline for my underwriting.

Quote from @Alan Eslinger:

Hi Everyone,

We have a 6 bedroom house with a lot of great amenity spaces. Our initial thought was to make it a LTR but we have had multiple folks tell us, that the house would make a perfect MTR for a site like furnished finder. They suggested renting the rooms out individually and having all of the amenity areas be common spaces. Wondering if anyone has had success with this and if anyone could provide good insight on how difficult it is to keep all of the rooms rented and any issues with having the amenity spaces being shared between 5 different folks.

We live 20 minutes south of Seattle, 25 minutes north of Tacoma and have 5 hospitals all within a 30 minute drive us. Thank you again for reading this post and providing any insight!

Hi, Alan - in that market you definitely have attractive options. The world of midterm rentals is incredibly broad. There's no one-size-fits all midterm rental. There are numerous strategies that match the type of home to the guest that is likely to need it.  Depending on the home itself, it could lend itself to the insurance placement model, corporate housing, relocations, and even the PadSplit model. It's impossible to say which without knowing more about your specific property. You could post your listing here if it's already available online or share some photos to source input from seasoned MTR hosts. You're welcome to share your property in a midterm host group I manage. We meet weekly on Fridays at noon EST. It's a great place for sourcing ideas and input from seasoned hosts. Let me know if you'd be interested in joining the group for this type of help. Also, I encourage you to list your property in many spaces travelers are housing. Check out MiniStays which is an all-in-one platform for lead generation, booking and managing your furnished rentals. Hope this helps!

This is a great write up, Jamie (as always!) I went through something similar when preparing my personal home for MTR for the same reason - moving out of state. I have a 4-bedroom home and I found that it worked best for me to lock off one of the bedrooms to store my own belongings (I return there several times a year) rather than having to put them in storage or bring them with me every time. Plus, I just had some big items I wasn't ready to move yet. So I offer this property out as a 3-bedroom rather than a 4-bedroom. This makes it much easier for me "move back in" occasionally. 

I've been using Baselane for my banking and bookkeeping for my rental portfolio for more than a year now. It was easy to set up and easy to use. I have LTRs, MTRs and one STR and it's great for managing all of these property types. I'm not aware of anyone using it for personal financing but that's not to say you can't. It's really been a time saver for me.

That's a beautiful property in a very desirable area. I don't know how the pricing stacks up against your competition but I don't think there's anything wrong with the property or the listing itself. You mostly just need more exposure. You should definitely list it on all the platforms that cater to travelers:  MiniStays, Furnished Finder, Airbnb, google, even booking.com (they tend to draw a lot of foreign travelers and San Diego is a highly desirable area for foreign visitors.) There are also numerous facebook pages for travelers looking for midterm stays. Just do a search for your area + furnished rentals and I'm sure you'll find them. Good luck!

Quote from @Marc Shin:

Hello,

Besides Furnished Finder and ALE solutions, what are some other companies that I can reach out to in order to get MTR leads?

-Marc

Hi, Marc - while it's important to reach out to the insurance placement companies to get your property on their radar, don't overlook all of the rest of the possible places to list your property as well. For example, MiniStays, Zillow (you'd be surprised how many people are searching for furnished housing on Zillow), apartments.com and social media pages catering to travelers in your area. I'm not sure where you're located, but you can do a search for FB pages that are focused on furnished rentals in your city or region and post there regularly. You can also post on more geographically diverse sites, like Travel Nurse Gypsy Housing, which covers all of the US. That's just a specific example, but I'm sure you get the idea. 

As others have mentioned, your first step should be to remove the watermarks. They're extremely distracting and make it difficult to really view the photos. Your content also reads like an MLS listing. Typically, travelers don't expect a description of the square footage of each room. The text just isn't a good fit for travel platforms - it definitely lends itself towards the MLS. You can use Chat GPT to update your content by asking it to write a property description in the style of other Furnished Finder or Airbnb listings using the information from your current description. Tell it to make it more "traveler friendly" and sound less like a real estate listing. Play around with it until you get it right. Is it possible to get your prior tenant to leave you a review? That will also help. For your cover photo, remove the bullet points about 3/2 and front porch. They can see easily that it's a 3/2 and your front porch isn't a great selling feature compared to the spacious backyard with outdoor living space so I'd lean into these amenities. I'd also highlight the fenced yard which is big for travelers with a dog. Good luck!

I don't see what you're describing as a mistake or having jumped too soon. I'd look at it like you're house hacking in a notoriously expensive market and your monthly rent is essentially the $1000 -$1100/month that you're coming out of pocket. I'd venture a guess you'd paying far more to rent a room or a house in the same neighborhood so not only are you getting super cheap "rent", you also have roommates who are paying down a significant portion of your mortgage. That's a win-win. There's a lot of idealism out there still and I think it clouds the realities of what investors are dealing with today. Sometimes real estate gurus and podcast guests talk about how much they're cash flowing on properties they bought 5-10 years ago when everything about the market was dramatically different but because they don't necessarily disclose that, it leaves the impression that you should be getting the same kinds of deals and cash flow today and usually not possible. So don't beat yourself up. It was a smart move. At some point you can probably purchase your next primary residence and do it all over again by fully renting out the DC and Baltimore properties as well as house hacking the next one if that's right for you. You're doing great!

Hi, Angie - it's not uncommon to ask for an entire month's rent up front as the deposit but that's very steep for a 30-day only rental and if they were to book a 30-day stay through one of the online platforms, they wouldn't be asked to give a deposit at all. So keeping all of that in mind, I'd consider reducing the deposit to half of the monthly rent. The deposit really just serves to safeguard you against a) cancellation and b) damage. If you're using a platform like Furnished Finder, they have partnered with Waivo to handle damage coverage so you might consider waiving the deposit all together and instead, utilizing a Waivo policy which will be less expensive all around and likely provide more coverage. As for utilizing the deposit should the guest cancel part way through their lease, check your state rules to make sure this is allowed before doing so.