All Forum Posts by: Michelle Dee

Thanks to you all! Last September we stayed in a beautiful place in Desert Hot Springs. It was all the way up off Palm Drive in the hills and it was a corner lot. Gorgeous views, beautiful home and great pool. It was so quiet, it seemed like there was never anyone around! The neighborhood felt deserted. We loved it. We didn’t leave the house other than to go to the grocery store and down to Palm Springs for a day. Ideally if we ended up buying there we’d want to buy in that area. That’s down the road a bit of course.

That being said, we’d love to own a place in Palm Springs For all the reasons you mentioned above, especially the fact that there’s just much more going on. We stayed in Cathedral city had a great place the spring and love the proximity to the airport and downtown Palm Springs. We’ll see how things go over the next couple years as far as our finances but we’d love to get into that area at some point.

Michael, you’re totally right. Need to hit the pause button here. I am really interested in how people do that own STRs in those areas though. Any information would be great. And maybe we’ll be joining the ranks in a few years! 

Thanks so much Mark. Let’s say we could put 20% down and figure out a way to pay for the closing costs, repairs, holding expenses, etc. to get it ready. How are you doing in La Quinta? Do you find that you’re able to fill your properties for the most part? Are you making money or breaking even? Would love to hear about your experience. 

Crap. Thanks John. Hmmm. 

Hi BPs! We're thinking of buying a place in DHS or the surrounding area to turn into a STR. We're a family of 5 from NorCal with 3 kids under 10. We spent time in DHS and Cathedral City this year on 2 separate trips and stayed in Airbnbs with pools and it was heaven. We'd like to buy a place we can visit 2-3x a year and rent out when we're not there.

Here’s the rub. We would only have 3.5% to put down and it would be a stretch for us to cover the additional expenses and any money needed to ready a place to rent out. We could do it but it would be tight.

We’d be taking a huge chance doing this but are excited about taking a risk. How much risk is too much risk in your experience? We’d probably look to rent to families like ours, we want to make the space good for kids and families that just want a quiet vacation where they can spend most of their day at the house by the pool. 

Are there cities in the area that you would suggest we look into other than DHS? I’ve heard Cathedral City is challenging for Airbnbs although the one we stayed in was fantastic. Anything closer to Indio or Coachella, La Quinta? We haven’t visited those areas but we obviously would if we were thinking about buying. Really just wondering about people’s experience renting out their space and making enough money to cover a mortgage. We’re not concerned with making a lot of money, just want to own a place that we can use and build equity in. Thanks for any advice or suggestions you might have!