All Forum Posts by: Jacob D Adamczak

Tome, What exactly are you looking for? Just people to meet in the local area for when you move?  As for the internship, does it have to be real estate specific?

@Ramki D.  That is up to you but if you put it with the price of the house you can put that into your financing of the house so your not out the cash or don't have to find another loan.

@Ramki D.Yes.  Check out the great explanation from Steve on this forum:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/...

I would recommend any other option besides a lease.  Tesla has an option to rent the solar panels which is better than a lease if you are trying to do it for low money down.  The Loan or buying cash route is better because a lease will put a lien on your house which will make it harder to sell and deter potential buyers.   Also, if you go to sell or refinance, a leased system will not be able to be part of the home appraisal whereas a loan/cash system will.  Finally, with a lease, the solar company technically owns the system and will therefore take all of the tax credits. 

Wendy,

I have a short term rental in Charleston. The laws are pretty tight in Charleston, there are only certain areas where you are allowed to have a STR and you have to go through a permitting process to be allowed to operate. In addition to an accommodations tax that you have to pay, you also have to be an owner occupant. So if you are purchasing for your son or with the hopes of operating a STR after he's gone, you wouldn't be allowed to do it in Charleston. In North Charleston Air bnb's are actually illegal but they have not enforced the laws yet which would make me nervous as when they finally start to crack down and enforce, you may be out of luck there. I would think that goose creek you'd be able to find a place within your budget but I wouldn't expect high STR demand. Mt. Pleasant is pricey and also has strict STR laws. I think your best bet would be to buy a place in N. Charleston that fits the budget and you can use as a STR until the laws change. At that point you could turn it into a corporate rental. Talk to @Dan Rivers or @Troy Gandee at Maven Realty. I know troy has a short term rental currently in North Charleston and they both know their stuff and could help you out.

@Troy Gandee Looks awesome! Is that a full size stove? It looks slightly smaller and I was eventually trying to put a stove in for when I move out so I can turn it to a corporate rental as I would no longer be an owner occupant to qualify for STR. Something small like that would work great!

@Phillip Austin I was lucky, my agent found it as his agency had the listing but I was looking since January before I bought in July. You're totally right about the area, everything you need is right off of 1,close to 526, and downtown isn't too far either. That was the plan, since you have to an owner occupant to do the STR, I was going to put a long term tenant in the main house which should cover the mortgage and turn the ADU into a corporate rental with a 30 day minimum.

@Whitney Coleman The house I bought is in West Ashley, (I think its zone C). You have to be an owner occupant to be eligible for a STR permit in the county. They determine this by you approval for the residential 4% property tax rate. For my process, once I bought the house I waited about a month for the deed to record before I could apply for the 4% tax rate. I also still had my old NY state license and car registration so I had to switch those to SC, pay the car property tax, license fee, and plate fee before I could apply for my 4% property tax exemption. Once I had my car title, license, registration, deed, and a bill for proof of address, I could then apply for the exemption which takes another 4-6 weeks. Upon approval of that, You can go downtown to the permit office and pay a $200 fee to apply for your STR license. They post your property with a sign that says it is under review for STR zoning and I think that was 15-20 days with another appeal period after that. If nobody commented or contested the review period you would be conditionally approved upon completion of a fire inspection. It was about another week before the inspector came out and I got approved. I then was able to go and pay for the rest of the years expected income tax on the unit/pick up the business license and permit, another ~$250 or so.
However, you have to stay overnight on the property/ be generally available and any violations are grounds for revocation of the permit. It is my understanding that all non owner occupants were grandfathered in before the addition of these rules. That is why I found a property with a guest house- I can use it as a house hack without sharing any walls with the tenants.

That looks awesome!  I was hoping to save up some revenue for about a year before I went back in and upgraded it as I put most of the money I had into buying the property and painting, gutters, urgent repairs, and furnishing of the unit.  For that type of revenue, it seems totally worth it! The previous owner air bnb'd the place for about 23k a year with about 1200-1500 in the winter and 2000-2400 in the summer coming in.  3-4k a month would be totally worth putting some money into it.

@Chase Hoover

You're right about the Charleston market, popular vacation spot with plenty of competition. I saw that a couple places qualified for the air bnb premium status and thus charge a higher rate and I would assume that they do so successfully.  I made the place nicer than the last owner had it but was hesitant to put that kind of money into it not knowing if I would get the return as it is a small space.

I had it on my radar to switch to a stainless steel fridge and I have the stainless microwave. I was also thinking about getting a tankless water heater to open up space to redo the kitchen layout to fit a stove/oven in there as it currently is just a kitchenette. I like the bicycle and beach gear idea though! Have you had any problems with theft or damage to them? I did make sure to get it professionally photographed- every other house in the area was and it would have made mine look terrible in comparison if I was to omit that. 

Thanks for the tips, I had heard similar things that most people like air bnb the best but was considering using VRBo to fill in some gaps in my booking schedule.  I had heard mixed reviews on pricing software so that's why I was wondering if you use it and if you thought it was worthwhile.  Good luck on the air bnb management business, that's pretty cool you were able to find other people's booking to manage!