All Forum Posts by: Jon Gom

I would love to hear answers for this post as well!  I just started AirBNB with my place in hawaii and I am trying to figure out how to manage it smoothly.  There's way more work then I initially thought as of right now.

Ever since I heard about the game I've always wanted to play.  I'd be down for a meetup sometime.  I live on North shore, but I could make my costco trip same day lol.

Welcome Bronson.  If there's anywhere to move to after hawaii I would also choose Oregon, it's beautiful.  Good luck with everything.

great thread.  Just read through the whole thing and now I'm dying to hear the happily ever after.  hope everything's working out for you.

Aloha from Hawaii.

So I currently live in oahu and own a condo that I want to start vacation renting.  So I'm trying to figure out what kind of factors play into determining how much money to put in for renovation.  

I'm brand new to this so I talked two investors who had different views on vacation Rentals.

 One says to always make your place comparable to units at the top of your market so you get good reviews and are always booked with good tenants.

the other said basically fix the bare minimum, no updates etc. and as long as you can get some kind of positive cash flow with your rate being Lower then the competition then reviews etc. Doesn't matter because when you are priced below the majority of the competition you will always have bookings.

So anyway my question for any vacation rentAL owners, especially in Hawaii, is what goes into deciding how much to fix your place up?  Do you want to pay the money up front to be getting top dollars or just bare bones at the bottom but still cash flowing and putting almost no extra money in.  Or is it a mix of the two?

I'm still a Newby and just wondering what others do in these situations.  Both people said they do well with their strategies, but I was at a condo party and they both didn't want to tell me their actual numbers. 

welcome.   I'm on Oahu and it sounds like our goals are pretty much the same.   I'm still a Newby myself so please post up when you do your first deal.   I'm always wanting to hear about investing in Hawaii. 

Take care

Aloha James,

Just want to say welcome.  I'm pretty new still so can't really give advice but I lived in Vancouver for almost ten years growing up and my family rented all over vancouver.  Definitely love the place and outside of Hawaii it's the only other market I can look at and have a vague idea what the neighborhoods are like lol.  Good luck with everything.

@Michael Borger thanks for the advice, I'm definitely always paying attention to prices of homes and also rent and I was starting to get the feeling that not all RE markets are the same lol so thanks for that.  

It does get frustrating when some of the cheapest places are 180k for studio and 1bdrm condos lol.  Almost thinking of investing in cheaper areas of the U.S. then coming back to Hawaii RE when I build more capital.

@Angelo Behar  thanks for the book suggestions I haven't read any of those so definitely gonna grab for some Christmas reading, much appreciated.

Yeah the beaches have minor rules when you get to the ones with better waves, especially north shore and leeward side, but all in all everyone's cool if you don't cut them off lol

@Paul Timmins thanks for the books as well. Never thought about REIA clubs so putting that on my things to do next list. Mahalos!

that was great thanks.  I was just thinking it'd be nice to read a quick synopsis on someone's first few buy and holds.  I'm new and basically want to do what you are doing lol so great to hear it can be done.  

If you don't mind some newbie questions how did you find out the tax insurance and projected rent?

I guess to restate my questions with more detail.  Is there a place that tells you the tax percentage and you just did it by hand? And for insurance did you have to get quotes or did you know by some other means?  And then for projected rent, did you use a special site or craigslist? Also did any of your estimates like rent etc. come out different then you planned?

Sorry for the bomb of questions but really interested in how you did these.

Mahalo!