All Forum Posts by: Eric Teran

@Errol St Marthe I use Jason Osser based in Fairfax. He even has a book about using Quickbooks to your advantage called, Riding Quickbooks to the Promise Land. Google him or sending me a PM and I can give you his contact information.

There are a few reasons why STR (Airbnb, VRBO, etc.) will bounce back and will do so before hotels.

1. In a hotel, there is a lot more contact with people. Social distancing will be harder to maintain. In an STR there usually is no contact with anyone else (unless they are renting rooms and not the entire place).

2. In an STR there is a kitchen so meals can be made. There is no need to go looking for a restaurant.

3. Businesses have figured out how Zoom works. Traveling for work will be limited as the new normal will be video conferences. STR reliant on businesses may hurt for a while but the vacation STR will bounce back as everyone is going to want to go to the lake for a weekend and get out of the city.

4. STR has the option to become long term rentals. The profit may not be as much or just breaking even but it is better than nothing. There is a housing crisis in the USA and that is not going away.
 

@Erin Spradlin we will definitely be able to keep all the properties. For the two condos in Ecuador, we are searching for long term tenants as their tourism industry is going to take a while to recover. Luckily the monthly costs to maintain both of them are only around $600 so we can afford to pay that until things turn around. As for our basement unit, it was always considered extra income that was nice to have but not necessary to survive. The same goes for the condos. Luckily I have my own Architecture firm and we are still keeping busy and that is our main source of income. 

We are one of those responsible (semi-responsible) investors that @Joe Splitrockmentions that we can weather this storm.

@Joe Splitrock

@Erin Spradlin I still see STR as a good investment if done properly and agree with your points. It would have been nice if the pandemic happened between October and March as those are my slow months. The pain would have been a lot less.

Two of our STR are condos in 10 story buildings in Quito, Ecuador. Unlucky for us the condo committees have decided not to allow for any rentals under a month. In addition our cleaning crews can't even arrive to the condos due to strict curfews in the city. If it wasn't for those two factors we would have been able to keep our condos occupied. Not as much as before but at least 50%.

We have one more Airbnb in our basement in Alexandria, VA and we have also received a lot of interest. However, as a personal decision we have decided not to rent it out until things calm down.

With that said I don't think STR is dead and every location will have various factors until things get back to semi-normal. However, it is still better than having long term tenants not required to pay their monthly rent.

@Nas Zidane The closets in all the bedrooms are 2'-0" deep which is a standard size. The hallway is only 3'-0" which is a little narrow and you definitely should not go less than that. You can take a few inches out of the living room and give it to the hallway. I personally prefer more space in the living room. 

@Nas Zidane I thought you said the ceiling was higher in one of the posts. I must have misunderstood. Definitely do not do a vaulted ceiling. It will cost a lot. Let us know what your contractor thinks. Good Luck. 

@Nas Zidane I believe the layout I provided will cost you less. You can show your Contractor both layouts and they will have a better idea. You definitely want the high ceiling space to be with the open kitchen/dining/living room. It will make it feel even bigger. Maybe even put a skylight for more light to get in. What works with these open floor plans is getting as much natural light into the space. When you provide more windows it visually makes the interior space feel bigger because your depth perception goes to the outside. For example, put a big window where I put the kitchen and dining room to the outside. Maybe make it a big sliding door. When someone opens the front door their sightlines will be drawn by the high ceiling and towards the natural light. They will see this big window or sliding door and look to the outside and the room will feel even bigger. If you put a nice tree or little patio with chairs then the extension from the interior spaces goes to the exterior landscape area. 

I definitely think you should do something on the exterior with the front door. I have no idea what it looks like but adding a porch would be nice. 

I flipped the bathroom and laundry/water heater so that if a guest uses the bathroom they don't have to pass any bedrooms and if one of the kids uses the bathroom they don't have to go into the public area. Additionally, you can't see inside the bathroom from the front door. 

I hope that helps. 

@Nas Zidane a few more notes. I think it would be great to have an entry closet but you do not have that much space. If you stack the washer/dryer you could use the other half for jackets and shoes and so on. You could also add a piece of furniture to the left when you enter that serves as a bench with shoe storage below and have some hooks above that are for coats. You need to think of what will add more value to the house and what may be a deal-breaker. Good Luck.

I decided to spend an hour or two on your plan and came up with a new more cost-effective version. I know you want to make it amazing to make as much money as possible while spending as little as you can. As you will see I think you basically just have to flip the existing bathroom by the kitchen to the other side of the living room and add the master bathroom. Thew new laundry room is in the corridor and if you stack them you can put the water heater in there as well. Another option is to do a tankless water heater for you to save space. You can even put those in the attic (if you have one). Each bedroom has at least 10' of closet space (brown rectangles in the space) and the smallest bedroom in the middle is 11'-0" x 10'-0".  With this layout, you keep the public and private spaces separate. It is never fun to cross a living room to go take a shower. 

The dining room is a little bit narrow but there is enough space for a house this size. Right now I have a 30" island with an area for bar stools so that can be shortened as well. Depending on your windows you will get a lot of natural light into this open space floor plan. Since it is open it will feel a lot bigger as well. Good luck!

@Mindy Jensen definitely follow @Brian Dance advice. Everyone is talking about the beams but what about the posts? In your sketch only one post is above a footing. The other three are just hanging in between joists. How are those going to be attached? The loads from the beam will travel to the post to the joists to the footings. That is why structural engineers start at the top of a structure when doing their designs. They have to know all the loads to design the foundation correctly. I would make sure the base of the posts are attached correctly.