All Forum Posts by: Luke Carl

Why not 3 180k houses? Why not two 275k?? Other than that the only number I don’t like is your occupancy. I’m not happy with less than 300 days per year which looks like almost double your market. Gross number looks like it’ll be good enough for a self managed VR.

Hey @Brian Sego  @Amit Kal nailed it. Short term renting is not a good idea in a city. Especially Nashville.  Long term renting in Nashville is very tough. I live in Nashville by way of Brooklyn. I have 2 houses in Nashville and when we quickly learned it was damn near impossible here we looked to the mountains in East Tennessee. I now own and manage 5 cabins in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg. My wife had an MBA and quit her big day job years ago to sell cabins full time because the phone just never stopped ringing. 

We created a self management system that’s easy. I do all of the management on all 5 properties from my cell phone. 

With 75k I would personally get in to (2) ~250k cabins. Minimum down payment will be 15% maybe even 10% if you qualify. With as much cash as these make I do not mind paying PMI with other people's money.

Could also get one 300k cabin at 15-20% and have enough left over for new furniture and appliances which nearly all of them need. And a flight or two down here. 

You could easily net more in a month than Amit is making in a year in Nashville for about the same amount of cash in. 

Rule of thumb: 250k cabin will gross 40k per year. If you manage it well. If I’m managing it; 45k easy. 

Amit is right, it is best to be somewhat present with a VR, but my wife has several clients that have never even seen their cabin or even been to the area and they do just fine. I personally wouldn’t suggest this. I would most certainly come down to get it ready to rent after closing. And/or before offering. If a guest asks you how to turn up the hot tub and you dont know you’re going to look pretty dumb. Of course you could just ignore them for asking such a simple question and you’ll likely still get 5 stars lol. 

If it sounds like a “what’s the catch” situation, it is. Most people (Amit for example) do not want to self manage, or are just plain scared of it. If you do not self manage in this market, you do not make money. (Local PMs charge 40%. Yes, Evolve will do it for 10% but it will stay a about 50% empty with them). 

It’s easy. I self manage 5 with a day job. If she’s quitting her day job it would be awesome for her. It’ll give her something to do for 5 minutes a day that remotely resembles work lol. 

Happy to answer any questions. 

Good luck! 

I really hope I’m reading things the wrong way and the OP did not bash Paul Sandhu in the vacation rental forum because that is, to put it lightly, not a good idea. “Hey my house is close to an airport and I can’t sell it to a family because the planes make a ton of noise let me sell it for double the price to someone who has the AirBnB app” is what I’m hearing. DC? Airport? You’ll get shut down by hotels if you’re not already.

John De La Garza I’m not sure what your question is but I have vacation rentals in pigeon forge/Gatlinburg that I self manage. I do all of the work from my phone and most of it while on the toilet. 250k cabin will gross 40k per year sometimes 45. Big bucks but I’ve got too many of them I need more long term rentals.

Well that’s a decent reply. If it were Nashville it would go like “Run. Run far. You’ll lose money here”

Wife went to undergrad in Austin. Wants to move back. We’re currently in Nashville been here 5 years. Quickly got priced out and started buying vacation rentals in Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg and were getting huge returns there but we’re maxed out on self managed vacation rentals. The stress of the 5 star review is too much. We want more long terms. I’ve been looking at SA a bit on realtor.com. Looks like you can make some moves there but I’d love to hear from a local. Wife is realtor and will get Texas license so I’ve got nothing to offer although I’m sure we wouldn’t mind using a realtor for our first one or two. And she’ll need somewhere to hang her license. Long story short.... can you find 1%ers in San Antonio and will the market last for many years or is it going to get priced out soon?? Where should I look? Where do the tattooed iPhone people hang out?

Will Grabert you live in Maryville and you’re looking in Florida? Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge produce some of the biggest returns in the country and it’s in your back yard. I have 5 there. I’m 37 and retired. Let me know if you want to chat.

Get on AirBnB and see if there are any 3 bedrooms and check their calendars. Very simple.

Valerie Rogers proving my point that people obsess over numbers too much in the VR world. You must have thousands of spreadsheets. I’m impressed.

Julie McCoy is spot on Ellie Narie and your second comment makes it even worse. You’re going to rent out 5 separate rooms to 5 separate parties in a duplex? You’ll have the cops there the first night. And the second. And the third. I would not do this. AirBnB is for VACATION RENTALS. Using it to try and make quick money in inner cities is a recipe for disaster. I would beg Julie for more advice if you want to go down the VR road.