All Forum Posts by: Tim Schroeder

Keep searching these forums, there are TONS of discussions about vacation rentals. Must have been something wrong with your previous searching.

I close on my 2nd cabin in 2 weeks. Talk to @Avery Carl she's my agent and has been very helpful.

FYI not all cabins close to town are R1. One of mine is .5 miles from the Parkway but it's a good idea to check every time. 

Don't even consider buying a meth house. There are too many to choose from to need to do that. Plus, if someone was cooking meth there then it wasn't setup as an overnight rental.

Usually, yes. But I would argue that you can be over-leveraged as long as your cash flow is strong enough to survive a drop in revenue and that you are sure you would not need to sell during the downturn

There is a term for that. It's called "Extortion".

Try airdna.co or Mashvisor - they give occupancy, pricing, and revenue stats

It does not matter whether AirBNB or VRBO is better, what matters is getting the exposure. Every locale is different. In NYC, AirBNB may rule. In the Smoky Mountains, VRBO rules. That's the platform guests go to. I am on both, but I get 70% of revenue from VRBO. To not be on VRBO would be suicide, so the the $500 annual fee is not something that can (or should) be avoided. It's just the cost of doing business.

Talk to @Avery Carl she was my agent on my first cabin and was very helpful, and she's handling my second one too.

Well I am new to all this. But, of course common sense says to aim to buy below retail if possible. For me, being new, I didn't feel I had that option. How does a newbie find below-market deals? How do you beat out professional investors? I don't know. So what I did is I bought retail off MLS, but made sure the numbers worked.

Also, here's the critical thing: For cash flowing properties, purchase price is not the key factor, income and expenses are. I know this sounds crazy and doesn't make sense on the surface. How can I say that purchase price doesn't matter? Well, just run the numbers through an ROI spreadsheet (by the way I use very conservative expense estimates). As I write this I was looking at properties and I had my ROI spreadsheet up. There is a property for $325,000 that I am looking at that should net $19,170 a year with ROI of 19.9%. If I increase the sale price by 20,000 the net changes to 18,148 and 17.9%. That's a modest drop of about $1000 bucks a year. The point is, both of those numbers are respectable (18k or 19k) and that 20k in extra purchase price barely affected my return.

So yes, you can pay retail and still make money.

I agree with @Luke Carl and not just because he helped me get started :)

But I would point out that the bad rep that AirBNB has varies by location. Nashville is a perfect example of a place where it's hated, for the reasons he pointed out. By in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge where he has his cabins and I have mine, it's a perfectly acceptable and respected system. VRBO/HA is still bigger though. I use both platforms.

Slightly off-subject, but I'll point out that AirBNB accounts for 45% of my bookings, but only 30% of revenue. AirBNB guests average stay is 2.9 nights, VRBO is 4.1. Plus, VRBO bookings tend to be made further in advance.

Therefore, it can be said that VRBO guests pay more, stay longer, and plan better.

Cabins in the Great Smoky Mountains, Tennessee -- Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge. I bought my first one there and am absolutely killing it. Trying to get into another one before the leaves change in October which is a very busy season. It's AirBNB/VRBO friendly, with a 10-month high season, Jan & Feb are the only low months but even those pay the mortgage. I expect to get a 30-40% ROI