All Forum Posts by: Jack Stephens

@Jay Breitlow I would really enjoy seeing your map of the 13.5 best areas for STRs as you mentioned in your post. 

--Jack

@Andrew A, thanks for the tips. That all makes sense to me. Seems a lot of owners aren't really keeping the furnishings up to date / avoiding carpet / etc, so easy to stand out in this way. I would have thought people would book further ahead than 60 days, so this is good to know. Are people keeping their places rented pretty consistently in Champions Gate and surrounding areas?

I'm here in a Orlando now searching for a possible home to purchase as a short term rental property. Sales agents for new construction in Championsgate are reporting that people are coming in from Brazil and China and buying multiple homes... anywhere from 5-8 bedrooms... and getting great returns (65-75% occupancy, 2k-3500k per week depending on home size and season). This sounds promising, but one must also do independent research as well. A quick search on the websites of two of the property manager company websites, provided to me by one of the builder sales reps, shows homes are advertised for $125-$225 per night, slightly higher in the peak seasons. Their availability calendars only show a few weeks here and there reserved, when I checked, with quite a bit of wide open availability. And, on one site, none of the listings had ever been reviewed. Results vary on airbnb and VRBO as well... lower per night rates but more reviews. Still lots of wide open availability shown on their calendars. The homes in new construction are super nice - even the townhomes have pools and are quite large. The single family homes, even the small ones, are very impressive -- they are huge, have pools, their beautiful... and some of the big ones even have cool features like home movie theater rooms. Older construction is available too, outside Championsgate, but nearby. All, and I mean all, of those homes have a very dated interior design, as though there were a rip in the space time continuum at the front door and when you step through it, you're in 2004... 1998... 1987... Some of the older communities have amenity areas with pools, arcade, tennis, movie theater, etc. Some don't. My agent used to rent a house or two out in an older area sans amenities and reported $1k-1.5k per week for 45 weeks out of the year. There is what seems to me to be a glut of homes available... just tons of them... with more on the way. My concerns are: is it really possible to maintain at least 60-70% occupancy through the year? And how does one stand out here?