All Forum Posts by: Jon Martin

I imagine that they would look at 2 years of W2s because the loan is tied to your personal name. That said, they should allow your DTI to be based on your current salary. Where the 2 years would almost certainly come into play is if you were asking to include your variable incentive pay in your DTI.

10% down is great but I've been hearing that they are adding several points worth of fees to 2nd home loans, which makes it closer to 15% down by the time it's said and done but you aren't getting the equity pay down from that extra 3-5%. If this is not true I would love to hear which lenders are not doing this! Otherwise I am also hearing that there are 15% down DSCR loans.

@Patrick Forelli it is 100% fair game to ask for rental history. Also take a close look at the listing- how are the furnishings? Could you make it better? Read through the reviews- are the guests happy? What did they complain about?  

If you see errors in guest service, experience and furnishings then that is a low hanging fruit that you can easily improve on. Do the same analysis on neighboring comps and that should give you an idea of the potential. 

Ring: mostly use this to monitor contractors/vendors but comes in handy and is great for peace of mind. 

August: Smart lock app. Easy to assign codes for the guest and set the hours they can access. Can also lock/unlock with the press of button and see if the door is open/closed/locked/unlocked. I know that Schlage Encode is the favorite here but I went with August and really like it. 

Google Home with Nest Thermostat:  App is clunky so I'm not a huge fan of it but it does the job, saves me a lot on electricity bills and is good enough once you get the hang of it. 

Turno: Good place to find cleaners. Best to go by word of mouth first but it is a great way to figure out the fair market price for cleaning your unit. 

All of these make self management incredibly easy. Costco and Target home delivery if I need to send something in a pinch. Also use Atto for tracking to track material participation hours.

Agreed, "market demand" (however measured), and even whatever AirDNA spits out are only single data points. Demand is meaningless without knowing the supply. Which is why there is no "magic number", it's all relative. While helpful information, any single data point from a 3rd party provider should be taken with a grain of salt and looked at as a small piece of a larger picture. 

As for the various demand "scores" not making sense, that could be seasonality. Maybe demand is high enough in the summer for the resort towns to charge super high rates, but the rest of the year is low which levels out the total. Whereas people have a reason to visit Charleston, Savannah etc for all kinds of reasons throughout the year, but they don't have to spend $400/night for a room like they would in high season in a resort town, which simultaneously evens out the year round ADR and keeps seasonality low. 

Either way, you make an impressive salary for your age and are already thinking in the right direction, so good for you. In addition to what @Michael Baum said, I would look for homes with a walk out basement/private entrance and/or a sprawling ranch style where you can easily close off and convert part of your house to an STR. Don't worry about being the most baller pad in your market (you won't be, so don't stress it), you are focusing on subsidizing your living cost and can go bigger with the next one. Prioritize location specific amenities (views, walkability, proximity) as much as you can afford and make sure you provide a clean and inviting space and I imagine you will just fine within the context of your goals.

Are you certain that it is showing up in searches? Use "Incognito Mode" in chrome and do a search of your area to confirm that you are still listed. From the city search, count how many search pages you are behind. Then go to the map fully zoomed out to the city limits and see how much you have to zoom in before you appear.

Otherwise, are you sure that you are keeping up with your competition? You may have a good backlog of reviews but it doesn't take too many savvy hosts with deep pockets to outcompete you and bury your listing. Assuming good management and competitive pricing, your only option is to step up your listing (better furnishings, decorations, professional photos etc). If you are comfortable posting your listing I'm sure you would get some helpful feedback. 

Also, you may consider VRBO. VRBO seems to be bigger in the "legacy" vacation markets that predate OTAs, which sounds like your market is, while AirBnb is more dominant in urban areas and college towns. Either way it's worth a look from the sound of your situation. Good luck. 

 Found a good cleaner here. Look for someone who is background checked and has good reviews. Also very helpful for gauging the fair market price because you get cleaners bidding for the work. 

As far as finding good handyman this can be tougher. You may have to kiss some frogs before you find someone you are happy with. I would ask around with any contacts you have in that area. 

I would agree with some of these markets if you are choosing a market with favorable regulations and you buy in at the right price (which is going to be true anywhere). We keep reading here about how bad the saturation, occupancy and ADRs are this year is in some top markets. The nice thing with these markets is that you have more exit strategies and potential for appreciation because they are not fully dependent on tourism. Many have universities, large companies, hospitals and all the other amenities of a mid-sized city so people travel and live there for a variety of reasons, so you could sell or change strategies to stay afloat. Although I would make sure that you buy something within quick distance to said attractions in an area with some character and not in some boring subdivision 10-15+ minutes away where the closest sit down restaurant is an Applebees. 

That said I'm not saying that vacation destinations aren't bad, however I would look more to lesser known regional markets that are an easy drive from population centers. 

What's even more insidious is that they sell these taxes to the public as if each dollar for dollar raised will go into the program it claims, and every time these taxes get funneled into the general fund. Twice this has happened with gas taxes that were supposed to go into road infrastructure. No different than how lotteries "fund" schools. 

Santa Rosa beach is in Florida near Destin. The Santa Rosa you linked above is in northern California. Nice town within a quick drive to a lot of amazing places but yeah, not STR friendly.

No risk in being on both AirBnb and VRBO. Helps to be versatile and have a back up plan if you have issues with one or the other. You can also experiment with different pricing and cancellation strategies.