All Forum Posts by: Carly Young

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment in Cincinnati.

376sqft Condo - Short Term Rental located within a very short walking distance to cincy's best bar/food scene.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

I love hosting people in my home town. Short term rentals in the area are much more profitable as a long term rental. Selfishly, I wanted to also have the option to enjoy the condo when it's not rented. The 10 year tax abatement was a nice incentive as well.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

On MLS - my main goal was to have the condo docs revised to allow short term rentals. The numbers made sense as it was listed.

How did you add value to the deal?

Staging the rental to attract the right renter.

What was the outcome?

So far so good!

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Short term rentals are more time intensive and require me to always keep an eye on my phone. Hiring the right cleaner/cleaning company from the get go will save you a lot of headaches, and reviews. Keeping expenses low helps with the fluctuating rents during high and low season. Adding a co-host who I trust was key to fill in while I'm traveling.

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

I'm an agent and represented myself. I would recommend Gary Weinhaur with Cleveland Mortgage Corp for all financing - easy or sticky, he'll get you through it.

@Daniel Hyman Thanks for the suggestion! I'll check into it.

I'm looking for a good accountant who has experience with Realtors and Real Estate Investors in the Cincy/Dayton region. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Thanks!

Hi all,

As an agent in Ohio, I get asked this pretty frequently - this is meant to be a fun post to get some creative ideas brewing.  If you were given 10k to use towards real estate investing, how would you invest it? 

Carly

@Eric Dowling had a great response. 

If you're not using an agent I'd strongly recommend it. A good Realtor will work with you on preparing an offer that will win the sellers over. Every property is different and your offer should reflect on the strengths and weaknesses that the situation presents. An experienced agent will know how to frame your offer to get you the best deal on each property. As far as documentation, proof of funds/preapproval is key.  You should also have all of your finances in order to make the loan process easier (if financing-bank statements, past tax records, credit report, records on other investments etc.)

Best of luck!

Happy to have you in Cincinnati and on BP! 

-Carly 

Happy to have you in Cincinnati and on BP! 

-Carly 

Don't even get me started on the Zestimate. lol

DO NOT USE ZILLOW. Don't even think about it. Remove it from your favorites and block the site. It's unreliable and inaccurate - many brokerages have made the decision to pull their listings from showing on Trulia and Zillow. As agents, we have very little control of our listings, so often times, we cannot even fix problems that show on our own listings. This includes past sale prices, current status, property details, old photo's etc.  Other agents pay for advertising so their info shows next to the listing which is also misleading. I don't know about you, but I don't like to use anything that's misleading. 

Realtor.com is the most reliable alternative to the MLS. It's updated directly from the MLS every 15 minutes.