All Forum Posts by: Ryan Moyer

Okay but snakes under the hot tub would legit freak me out.

Short Term Shop is the top STR realtor group in the country and they specialize in the Smokies.

I think they get you on google's new STR search platform as well, though I don't think anyone is actually using that yet.

Theme is minimum

vs.

Theme will help you stand out

Man you sound like my wife and I two years ago, right down to the healthcare burnout.

Now we own this place in Orlando, which has been one of the best decisions of our life: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/5...

Happy to chat and share our experiences getting into that market, and share some contacts that can help as well.

I sound like a broken record, but to me Orlando makes a ton of sense if you have some cash to spend on theming.  Nice houses with nice furniture are a dime a dozen, but if you can be one of the 5% mega themed out, you'll do well.

It's a perfectly fine business model, but it's not a real estate investment.  Since this forum is all real estate investors, there are essentially no arbitragers here, so it's really not the right place to find info on it.

I've done both.  It's definitely preferable if you can go to the place for set-up, and that's what most people do.

My first STR was only about 5 hours away so I did what you're talking about. Loaded up a Uhaul and went down for a week to get everything set up. Got some family help in the area as well which was hugely helpful, but still I was waking up at 8am and working through until 3am the next morning every day with basically no breaks. My wife said it was the hardest she'd ever seen me work (us software developers aren't exactly known for our peak work ethics).

My 2nd STR was a cross country flight away. I ordered a bunch of stuff and flew out to assemble it and set it up but I could only get 2 days off in my schedule to do it. That was a laughable attempt and I didn't even get close to finishing, so I ended up paying someone to do it. It ended up being around $15k but that also included electrical work, some wallpaper/paint, etc. It was a large market (Orlando) so I could find someone for it, might have been more difficult in a smaller market. It ended up being an interior decorator that specialized in STRs in the area where we worked out kind of a hybrid agreement (just hiring her as the decorator to furnish the place would have been a LOT more expensive).

 I don't think there's any rules against it, but I don't know for sure.  But honestly it's not very relevant anyway.  I know it's a popular thing for people 3 years out of date on market trends to say "make sure you can fall back on using it as an LTR if you need to" but, like I said, they're just parroting 3 year old info that is really no longer relevant.  

It's maybe possible/relevant if you're buying in a non-vacation market where regulations are the main concern and prices are still based on what people are willing to pay for a primary residence there. But in established short term rental vacation markets like Disney or Gatlinburg the homes are priced to be STRs. They don't even come close to making sense as a LTR. Even if you can legally rent it as a LTR an 8br themed home in one of those resorts would rent for what, $3000/mo as a LTR? On an $850k mortgage (not to mention the theming/setup costs) that's not going to help. If the STR market gets so bad that we're having to fall back on $3000/mo as an LTR for a million dollar house, we're all screwed.

Man I would love to own a place in Lake Tahoe. But I just don't think it's a good market for STR, both in terms of returns or legislation.

Would love to be proven wrong on that one.