All Forum Posts by: Erica Muller

@Joe Garvin I have never used them but I see them advertising all over. I've been talking to Alexandra over at Vacasa and they have a very interesting business model that I haven't seen done before in the industry. I recommend also looking into them as well. You could speak to @Gerard Lester if you have questions.  

Hi @Jeremy Aldridge! I've been selling vacation rentals to investors in Orlando for almost a decade now. If you're new to it, here is what you want to pay attention to: 

1. The location should be within an hour of a major airport. Preferably an international one. 

2. If you are going to look at Florida you should be aware of the high cost of insurance anywhere along the coast. It takes a huge chuck of your profit. The coastal areas are the most high risk for hurricanes here in FL so the cost of insurance is much higher than the areas that are inland such as Orlando. 

3. Beds/baths. Here in Orlando the higher you go in bedrooms the more income potential you have. 6+ bedroom homes are grossing six figures while 2-3 bedroom condo and townhouses are lucky to see 25K a year in income. 

4. Management. You need a good PM. If you try to self manage from afar it's most likely going to be a disaster. It's worth the fee if you have a good PM. They should also be able to put bookings in place as well. I would talk to @Gerard Lester about this. 

5. Furnishing expense. Please keep in mind you will have this and need to factor this into your budget. You have to be willing to make it nice inside as well. There's a lot of competition and the ones that book first and the ones that are decorated nicest and offer the best amenities both inside the home and around it. 

6. The view. Don't buy anything without a view. Preserve is better than looking at another house. Mountain and lake views are great up North. In Central Florida a preserve is better than a lake because people are scared of alligators. 

If you need any more advice feel free to reach out. I'll send you my number if you'd like to chat. I also have spreadsheets on Orlando properties you can look at that you might find helpful. 

Good luck!!

Hi @Ruth VARTHOLOM! If you decide you want to take a look at vacation rentals for investment I would love to show you some spreadsheets on how they are performing. In almost every case they are grossing two-three times more than the standard long term rental properties. 

That's fantastic @Blake Brose! It's very similar here. You have to get the right floor plan and 6+ bedrooms definitely perform the best right now. Interesting how that carries over into your market as well. Perhaps it's a national trend with vacation homes. 

@Luke Carl There are several lenders I work with that specialize in vacation rentals for investors. We've closed dozens of financed vacation rental properties. If you need some names, feel free to reach out. I'm happy to pass them along. 

Congrats on your success @Darrel Maxam!! I own a manufactured home park in Loudowici, which is about 3 hours away from Atlanta but I've been considering a possible branching off into Atlanta. I didn't realize VR's were doing so well there!! Here in Orlando the VR market is super hot. I work with them here and they're grossing six figures in some neighborhoods.  I will keep you in mind if I decide to go in that direction in the future. 

Welcome Allen!! If you have a vacation rental questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. I'm happy to help!

Hi John! I'm somewhat of a tech nerd so I can't resist jumping in on this conversation. You should use Wordpress if you can figure it out (It's not that hard). It's better for organic search placement and is way more flexible than Square Space. SS owns your site ultimately if you don't pay. If you use self hosted Wordpress, you own the site and you are just paying for hosting. The set up process is a bit more involved than SS but once it's done it's done. You can easily have someone do it for under $150 on Upwork. Also when shopping for a domain, make sure you do it with the intention of using your target keywords. Google crawls the domain name before anything else when indexing your site so whatever you want to rank for, I suggest using that as your domain name and then getting a second one to park on it and use that one in your marketing. 

Welcome Jeremy! If you have any questions about vacation rentals please don't hesitate to ask. The market here in Orlando is one of the busiest and ripest VR markets in the country right now. The average 6-7 bedroom floor plan in the right neighborhood is grossing upwards of 100K annually. The price point to get into one is between $330K and $450K. 

In any market, it's also important to be somewhat close to a major airport (within an hour) and whatever the local attraction is in that town. Whenever I'm searching for vacation rentals in other locations, I go onto VRBO and I search the ones that are most booked and then I cross reference them to find out where they are located and search in that area.