All Forum Posts by: Miguel Del Mazo

You seem like you're doing all the right steps. You are being very conservative to avoid making mistakes, and that is a rare, admirable quality in real estate that is often undervalued. 

Since you already have the HELOC in place, and were able to pay it back quickly, why not use it as your down payment and repair fund? Even if the new property only breaks even, you have shown an ability to handle the debt of the HELOC very well. Aggressively pay back the HELOC just like you did when you use it for the repairs, and you'll have a second property with it's own, independent long-term financing. Ideally, you pick a good property that is self-sustaining. When the HELOC is fully paid down, it can function as the next down payment and fixer-upper fund. Repeat as desired. DSCR loans are a viable financing option to secure 30-years, fixed-rate financing on each of the new properties.

Is this the way every investor would do things? Probably not. It's hard to get millions of people to agree on anything, but it is a very tried and true way to conservatively grow a portfolio. You'll be planting oak trees to grow over time, not bamboo, and that is absolutely fine. :)

 I also just got this email about a renewal (only a partial quote) :

Effective January 2, 2025, annual subscriptions will be priced at $179, and $129 for add-on units. Our records show that your subscription is set to auto-renew, and no action is needed from you to maintain your listing tenure. As a reminder, listing tenure positively impacts your performance on our marketplace. If you no longer wish to renew your subscription, you can turn off auto-renew at any time.

It's an annoying increase, but I get it. Still, we've re-opened our VRBO listing and have just started a listing with Mini Stays to see how they perform. 

 I'm not sure if this part copied over (hard to see on my phone) :

$45 dollars off with code JUMPSTART45

From an email I received from FF:

You've listed the "big three", and those are all that are needed for most MTRs, especially if you have a limited number of doors in an area. (and I would definitely support paying the $149 for listing on FF)

Beyond FF, Airbnb and ALE, it's going to take time and leg work, and which platform will depend on your market. Once you have some leads coming in, you'll start to see patterns in what kind of traveler is looking for your place(s). After you identify what avatar wants to find you, go looking as if you were them. 

If you get nurses, Google "nurse housing in [your area]". If you see work crews reaching out, ask the person in charge of securing housing where they go looking. Be where their eyes are searching, but it's not as simple as asking here. 

You can even learn a lot from leads that don't book with you, if you build report and ask the prospect worthwhile questions.

 Thank ye kindly. :) 

@Bonnie Low I went to check out MiniStays a while back, and it seems like a good site. 

However, I got caught up during creating my listing because it looked like I needed to have another account (Stripe? I forget; it was payment processing related) that required me to have a website for the business. I don't have one. As a result, no MiniStays account for me. 

Am I just dense (a real possibility), or did I miss how to navigate account creation without a website for our business? 

Thanks

It's a great idea to think of everything in MTR from the somewhat unusual perspective of the traveler. Some amenities are crucial and obvious (pots and pans, plates, linens, good Wi-Fi), some are unnecessary and obviously so (personal movie theater with arcade game room), but the trickier amenities lie in the 2 middle zones.

What are some necessary amenities that you might overlook? This may depend on your market, of course, but in general, if all of the nearby MTRs have it, you are going to want it for your units, as well. Utilities fall into this category. I support (and use) a utility-cost cap amendment in our leases to ward off those who might want to mine cryptocurrency or operate an indoor greenhouse, but the vast majority of MTR have utilities included and the vast majority of travelers expect that they are. We have talked about parking availabilty in another thread, and it is an often overlooked amenity whose lack can torpedo an MTR's success. I think we all know about the importance of black out curtains and a comfortable bed and linens, but after buying the wrong product, I have learned how important a good vacuum is to many travelers. One of the great things about having multiple residents per property per year is that you can iterate faster than with an LTR. You also tend to get more frequent and better feedback than with an STR, if you treat your residents well.

The last quadrant, unnecessary but not obviously so, is usually as a result of either converting an STR to an MTR or from remodeling above the standard needed. A foosball table, a "Log Cabin (or other trendy) theme", or 3-jet shower probably have a better place in an STR than an MTR. Sure, they might be appreciated by the traveler, but they certainly wouldn't be missed. The quadrant can also easily open the landlord to some headaches. Items or features in this quadrant that aren't there won't be missed, but if they are there, they will be expected to operate perfectly. The classic example of this is "a printer". It might seem like a kindness to provide a printer to a traveling professional, but until they invent one that works on every device, every time; that doesn't need paper at two in the morning; and has cheap toner that refills itself, we will pass on that amenity.

I am sure there are other examples for all 4 quadrants, but like @Allen Duan wrote the important thing is to look at amentities through the lens of the end user (with an eye towards the "competition").

I definitely don't regret having done it that way, but for someone starting out when money is tighter, it's not necessary. The two 4-bedroom units even have two full-size washer and dryers each! 

Co-living is going to grow and grow as time goes on (but maybe less so in my neck of the woods, to be honest). Sober living hasn't much of a foothold in NE GA from what I can tell, but there is a lot of need for traveling crews that work in specialized areas of the trades. 

To help support that avatar, try and have on-site parking and ideally a place where a large work truck can be parked without issue (think fully decked out F-350). 

We have 3 2/1 condos in our portfolio that attract traveling professionals (medical or otherwise) and a triplex that we essentially BRRR'd down to the studs. When we built up the triplex, we set it up so that each of the 11 rooms can be rented out individually (all BR, except 2, have their own bathroom behind an electronically locked door). Each BR even has its own mailbox and key.

The triplex is much more popular with traveling work crews for specialists in the trades and insurance relocations, so if we were to do it again, I would probably worry less about making each room it's own rentable space and save a little bit of those costs. 

All that to say, I really like small multifamily for MTR. It offers flexibility as a landlord to be able to offer more or less rooms as needed, protection to the landlord in that you can hedge with adding LTR or STR to the mix, and simplification to the business as your only dealing with one address. Throw in that you can dramatically increase the value of the property once you show consistent rent rolls much higher than when the space was used for LTR, and you have a big win.

All of this depends on your market having demand, of course.