All Forum Posts by: Jon Martin

This. You are already putting up at least some cash to sign the lease and furnish the place, so why not deploy that cash in a better way and have ownership?  

I would look into a house hack with 3.5-5% down, such as a single family home with a detached garage or walk out basement that you convert to a 1-bedroom for STR. If you are single or have a supportive partner, live in that unit and rent the main house to really stack cash.

There are also 10% down bridge products that include rehab costs. So many great products out there, IMO it is better to use that cash to leverage equity than use cash (or credit cards) to pay for security deposits and furniture. 

Agreed. I first saw a photo of Bryson City (never been), where the mountains and river and train tracks all meet in a quaint little town, towards the end of 2021 and thought it would be an incredible place to own an investment property. Even then the purchase prices were inflated and the revenue estimates didn't come close to justifying it. 

Given that residential properties are valued based on comparable sales of other homes this is likely not to change. I don't see STR sales of residential homes being enough of a piece of the pie for appraisers to come up with some alternate special way of appraising the property.

That said you can always try to price it on a multiple and sell it that way, but it won't be lendable and the market will tell you if your "business" is priced appropriately. 

On a related note, I think there is huge opportunity in repurposing commercial buildings into STRs or hybrid STR/boutique hotels and that is something that could be sold as a business, although that is an expensive endeavor and comes with much more DD and risk than a residential home purpose.

Agreed with the above . . . The draw with STRs is that the amenities are on site and private. Guests might appreciate the option but monetizing it could be tough. 

If you are going to put that much effort in and have the space, just build some 1/1 bedroom cabins while you are at it. 

While I don’t doubt the validity of this story, I do question the level of effort by the owner that was put into furnishings/decor, management, site selection etc. Once past the early upswing of a new market, average efforts yield average results.

That said, the true cost of ownership is often humbling once you the trailing 12 months of expenses. Nothing wrong with unloading and moving on, better to voluntarily stop the bleeding than having that decision made for you. 

No specific experiential advice I can offer but there are USA based call centers with 1-800 numbers where you pay per month for a certain month over of minutes with a native English speaker answering the phone. If you give them a clear SOP for the big stuff (lockouts, parking, supplies etc) then that would cover most of the bases. That said they won’t sync with your Airbnb messages and help you there, at least none that I know of  

Where I see an offshore assistant being useful would be for after hours inquiries and other mundane tasks such as ordering supplies, setting door codes, guest reviews and what not. Which would only be as good as whatever systems you have in place.

Agreed, pull out sofas that you would actually want to sleep on are the white whale of the STR world. I find that the typical fold out design is inherently flawed because you can't fit enough mattress inside a couch to be comfortable if it needs to be folded 2-3 times, and then you have a support bar running across the center of your back on top of a thin mattress.

The pull out roller style is a better design but much less to choose from. 

Buy everything pre-assembled if possible, especially items with drawers and moving parts. At least some of what you save buying it unassembled you will pay to someone else or your own time putting it together, plus that adde time with bottleneck and delay the rest of your setup. Pre-assembled items also tend to be of better quality and have less parts, making them less prone to failure and saving you replacement and liability costs over the life of your listing. 

Also agree with consolidating vendors and buying stuff in sets when possible. You will have a literal mountain of cardboard, so you may want to get a rollaway dumpster as well (not an exaggeration), so the more you can cut down on the total number of boxes shipped the better. 

For anything that can fit in a suitcase, shoot for "value" grade items that are good quality/durable and pleasant to use, but not luxury, because if it's too nice and unique someone will help themselves to it. I have a shopping list with these items so feel free to PM me. 

Wouldn’t want to turn on a black light in that house