All Forum Posts by: Kerry Baird

Great to see a deal done from the private lender side of things.  Nice!

My community recently elected a mayor who is against STRs. They changed ordinances to include reducing occupancy to 8 people, added a noise ordinance which is at speaking level sounds (no more Marco Polo from pesky tourists), changed parking laws which only affect visitors but not residents (no parking in street or over sidewalk), changed offender/predator rules so there is no space in the municipality where one can stay (a park bench is a “park” and they put benches all over the place and offenders cannot be within so many feet of these spaces).  I was accused publicly by a neighbor of hosting so I can welcome child offenders. 

To get my certificate, I must have an internal emergency light.  This requires a permit.  They will not give me a permit for the emergency light, so I cannot renew my certificate.    

Municipalities are using lawfare to prevent STRs.

Watching this 

Welcome to BP, first off.  Sadly, things have gone in a direction that don’t leave too many obvious choices.  The low downpayment at the beginning and recent increased expenses make cash flow challenging in the first few years. 

-You have been clever with the STR and MTR rents, and yet I understand the risk of having a guest leave early.

-You must do those repairs. Each one will get worse, as you discern. Repairs are deductible if the house is a rental, as you probably know.

Thoughts: My highest cash flow has been STR. Can you rent a place out close by and run your house as an STR, since you have it set up, furniture and internet/utilities in place? Mid term probably is next for cash flow, but I haven't experienced differently than you, where I have bigger gaps between guests than I can afford. Renting long term will require the house to be empty, for lowest cash flow, hopefully break even or slightly positive.

While renting this house and at least getting some rents & tax benefits, can you two rent a place that is cheaper, so you can save up for repairs?  Can you rent to military? Section 8?Take a second job? Develop a side gig? 

Try listing for rent somewhere else…Facebook or Zillow? I have used both Apartments and Zillow for LTR and it worked out pretty well. 

I think you have to be scrappy for awhile. I hope someone else has other ideas.  One house can feel risky, but once you have positive cash flow and a couple houses, I feel the risk dimishies.

Yay! 

@Jeremiah Dye, my FL municipality also changed the occupancy to 8 people.  My big house can sleep 21.  I typically have a set or two of grandparents, parents and kids.  Many municipalities are using onerous regulations to make it difficult to stay in compliance.  The Governor supports tourism, but many localities do not.

So you begin to make connections and have interactions with active agents in the local real estate market.  You have local resources at your disposal, can have questions answered face to face, suggestions for test success, can ask determine agencies to aim for or avoid for future opportunities.

In your shoes, I would take an in-residence course, and not do an online variety.  

Additionally, I would find a local investors' meetup and attend, going out of my way to meet people in a variety of fields, such as appraisers, lenders, insurance agents, property managers and so forth.  I'd introduce myself, even though I was very shy at your age.  

My thought is that $5000 is indeed a lot of money. It is also the cost of getting money quickly for an investment where I might not be able to do the deal otherwise. 

Many HELOC providers will open a line of credit for free, but you agree to keep the line open for a certain amount of time. It is similar to an origination fee for a mortgage. The lender wants to earn money from your loan.

On the other hand, I just used HomeBridge and they were really fast and a high line of credit, also with a high fee. If I'd used hard money, I would pay high interest and an origination fee. I wouldn't be able to access that amount in a short period of time with a conventional lender, and it also would have an origination fee and closing costs, but would take 30-45 days (and they need the house to be in good condition and my DTI has to be good and my FICO scores have to be really high).

So with the HELOC I considered the juice worth the squeeze, and we got funds in 10 days.

Yay!  I am happy for that positive outlook.  Via my property manager, rents have been gently increasing in W Texas.