All Forum Posts by: Julia Bykhovskaia

@Alex DeaconThank you! Great advice - yes, I need to start talking to local banks NOW. I expect to be able to pay down the loan so I will be refi -ing at 75%-80% LTV or even less. Agree that I need to have a plan well in advance. Don't know much about secured lines of credit - will investigate those as well, thank you for an idea! I do have some equity in my two other houses, can offer this up as collateral. Leaving my job is irreversible for me, so I'll just have to hustle more to get going - but that was always the plan.

Hi Everyone! I am going on a due-diligence trip to North Carolina in June (Raleigh, Charlotte, Winston/Salem, Greensboro, etc). Want to learn more about the market/meet people/drive around. The plan is to meet with property managers, city officials, commercial brokers. 

Looking for recommendations for property management firms that manage 100+ units B/C properties and are relatively large in size/have a long track record of success. Would greatly appreciate your thoughts! If you know of any young and hungry commercial brokers, I would love to talk to them as well. Thank you all!

? I was not asking for career advice but thank you anyway. I know I WILL find the money one way or another, just asking around here for ideas. 

Hi Everyone! I will be looking for a vacation rental property to buy, I currently own two (PA) and they do well. I left my job this year so no W2. I've heard of (1) another investor who has private lender financing to fund 100% purchase price + light rehab + furniture with 5 year term at 10%, (2) someone else who has an institutional line of credit for similar projects at 7.5%, (3) another investor who was able to raise a blind 10 yr pool of money for corporate housing properties at 6.5%. Question: this is my first time looking for funding. Where do I start looking for something like this? I did already find someone who'd do 85% LTV on the house for 7-10 yrs term (30 yr amort) at 6.5%. I just need to solve the last 15% piece + $60K for the furniture/rehab. The houses are cash flow generative so I would be able to pay down a higher than normal principal % every year. Maybe I could do a 2nd lien on the house? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

1. Are you renovating first? If yes, line up contractors to interview ASAP. It's a process and few would be able to start right away. 

2. If not renovating - start looking for furniture. Depending on the size of the house - some say buy stuff on Craigslist, but my houses are large (6-7 bedrooms) so that was not an option, I would spend weeks looking. If  using IKEA - have to go to a store, place an order in person (their website sucks) and schedule delivery. In my area, it's usually 3 weeks. Then you'll have to find someone to assemble all the furniture. I came to hate IKEA because of horrible, terrible customer service. They would always deliver wrong things, or fail to deliver the right ones. 50 min minimum to get someone on the phone and they are mostly incompetent. 

Some say IKEA is cheaper - I guess so if you assembling yourself. If you are not - it's not cheaper, it's a HUGE brain damage, + assembly will take time (days, sometimes a week) so you'll be loosing money because the property is not on the market. 

I personally switched to Raymour and Flanigan - better quality, 3 day delivery, assembly included in price. SO much easier. 

3. Start looking for cleaning staff

4. Start looking for a handyman

5. Don't forget WiFi, everyone wants it

Good luck!!

I'm not a lawyer but I'll use their most favorite phrase: "it depends!". Depends on on where you are at.

I agree with @Julie McCoy, in drive-to vacation rental markets, mid-range properties should do reasonably well since families will trade down to drive to markets vs fly to markets. Big savings for them here. 

Properties that attract a lot of foreigners should do reasonably well as well, especially if the US $$ declines. 

If the property is in the expensive fly-to market, attracting mostly domestic crowd - that would probably get hit the most. Lower price point properties would generally do better during the recession. 

Professional short term rental managers want the views of people like Paula to prevail so we have less competition. STRs are definitely more work but most of it can be automated (if you know how) and if you can get 2x - 6x of long term rent - it’s SO worth it. Not all markets allow that; you need to do research obviously. I’d argue though that anyone can find a decent performing market 1-3 hours drive from where they live. And there’s nothing wrong with investing/managing out of state 

On noise - professional hosts (myself including!) use NoiseAware in residential buildings. It’s a noise monitoring device which alerts the host if things get a bit out of control. We inform guests that noise monitoring device is installed and that they will be fined if the noise threshold is breached. This strategy seems to work!

To clarify - is it $2K a year for your better property? Then it’s an easy answer...get out :) at $167 a month you are not compensated for the amount of hassle this strategy involves. It can work - as demonstrated by many others - but you need to have a right property in a right location. I personally don’t get excited unless I think I can generate $12K a year with the unit. Maybe I misunderstood and it’s $2k a month? Then we both know it’s awesome and you should keep those...But you need to study the market to understand seasonality. Talking to others and looking at AirDNA could help with that. But you’ll only know best once you’ve been through a 1 year cycle 

I have another investor in my area recommend an awesome cleaning lady and handyman for my 2 properties. I don't get to sleep with any of them.