All Forum Posts by: John Oden

@Kyle Seidel  good job on the due diligence!! 

I'm in the process of setting up a STR management company, so if anyway I can help regardless of which direction you end up going, please let me know.

It is frustrating that lenders don't count STR income. It's such a new industry, and in their eyes the income stream is potentially unstable so it's going to take the lending world a while to catch up.

Nashville is a great town and a great STR market, best wishes for success!

I would recommend that your first concern should be local regulations. 

 Nashville  is very short term rental antagonistic, permits are required and no new permits for non-owner occupied short term rentals  in areas zoned R or RS have been issued since June 2017. 

Multifamily (zoned RM) is permitted by city ordinance, but then you've got the HOA to worry about.

 I realize your question was about financing, not regulation but just wanted to mention.  I’d hate to see somebody go through all the effort to purchase a property and then find out it can’t be used for their intended purpose. 

Messaging hosts/owners via the platform for purposes other than booking a stay will not go well, and your inquiry will likely be marked as spam, putting your own account at risk. I receive a fair number of solicitations for photography, cleaning, and other services via the platform which I find annoying and flag as spam.

These days, many astute owners are putting up their own web sites for direct booking, in addition to listing on AirBnB, VRBO, etc. What you might do is see if you can find anything searchable in the AirBnB/VRBO listing and do a search, see if you can find the owner's web site, and make contact from there. 

Hosts on platforms such as AirBnB and VRBO are scored on their response time to inquiries, and these days the bar is pretty high - I try to respond within minutes. My response metric is measured in the same way if I get spammed by someone trying to sell me services, so I'm under the same pressure to respond to that as I am a legitimate guest inquiry. That's another reason for owner frustration with service providers who attempt to solicit  through the platform.

To my knowledge, AirBnB stopped offering free photography some time ago at least in the markets that I'm in. That could work to your benefit, but I would suggest finding some way to make contact other than through the booking platforms.

STR regulations in Nashville TN require that the property be held in the name of a natural person, no entities allowed. We have had folks in our area lose their permits by transferring ownership to an entity.

So yes, this can be a concern.

There are few general answers to STR regulatory questions, it all depends on your local ordinances. If you have a local STR association, that would be a good place to start.

What your brother can or can't do will be determined by the terms of the lease, and the willingness of the landlord. 

Any competent landlord/property management company will have language in the lease that prohibits subletting of any kind, AirBnB or otherwise. Many leases do have a provision that provides for termination of the lease due to certain major life events such as job transfers. That would be a good place to begin.

Beyond that, having a candid conversation with the landlord is where I would go next. Perhaps the landlord might agree to subletting to an approved tenant that your brother could find. Or maybe the landlord would agree to begin re-marketing the unit with your brother paying rent until a suitable replacement tenant can be found.

At the end of the day, your brother is bound by the terms of the lease that he signed, and trying to slip something past the landlord/property management company is not likely to end well.

Beware local regulations. Short-term rentals are heavily regulated in Nashville and must be permitted to legally operate. 

Non-owner occupied permits in residential areas (zoned R or RS) have not been issued since June of 2017. If this property is not your primary residence, you may have a problem. 

Owner-occupied permits are still being issued, with certain requirements, such as notification of adjacent property owners, fire marshall inspection, $1MM liability insurance. 

Yes, I've done several back in the day - 2005ish. You might want to look up John Fedro - I think he's here on BP and also has his own podcast.

We have that question come up from time to time, and I always provide the address of our property. I could understand some hesitation if you are renting out a shared room in your home, however if its a dedicated rental, I don't see a problem.

In our case, we are very visible on social media and via our own web site, so our street address is not difficult to find for anyone who takes 5 seconds to do an online search for our property name and city.

If you really want to maintain address anonymity, you could provide cross-street into, which I have done on occasion. This will allow potential guests to know how far your place is from various attractions, without your giving up your property address.