All Forum Posts by: Ryan Moyer

I think his point was that it's hard to estimate occupancy outside of the season you're in.  There could be a place with rates set at $750 in july that is totally empty and you don't really know if they're going to fill up 40% at those rates or 90% at those rates until we get closer to July.

AirDNA is not accurate for my properties.  I have a property in Southern Utah that AirDNA says I can do $40k on and a property in Davenport (right next door to Kissimmee) that it says I can do $55k on.

My Southern Utah property has grossed $90k in 7 months so far, and Davenport has grossed just under $40k in 3 months (none of which were the high season).

My personal take on it is if you're just looking to buy a nice place in Kissimmee that is turn key with the same old nice furniture and throw it on the market then don't waste your time.  There's 20,000 of those properties in Kissimmee/Davenport and getting yours booked over theirs is just a race to the bottom in pricing, and people there are willing to go insanely low on pricing.

To succeed in the Orlando area you need to stand out, and that means theming, arcade, etc.  You can go all out (like I did) and do very well, or you can go a little more chill/budget friendly and still do okay.

This is my place there: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/5...

I have one near Disney.  There is plenty of meat still on the bone there and it's a pretty simple formula to do well.  But if the state/county pillaging your pocket book with ridiculous made up taxes is frustrating to you then you're not going to find Florida much better than California.

I just got my furniture tax form in the mail today.  I have to pay an annual tax on the furniture I own in the house.  This is only about the 8th stupidest tax I have to pay here.

But, the returns are still good.

Cool place!

I own a similar place right around the corner that is doing very well.  https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/5...

I went from zero to a place like that leveraging mostly just bigger pockets, facebook, contacts I made through both, podcasts, etc.  But I'm not going to say it was quick or easy.  So you're definitely right there is more than one way to skin a cat, and I can see the value in skipping ahead to the end for a fee.

I listen the Vodyssey podcast among many others. Shawn seems like a really good and knowledgeable guy (who actually lives not far from me, would be fun to meet up some time). Even as a relatively seasoned STR'er I've definitely learned some good stuff from his podcasts and I'm guessing his clients, who are often very new to STRs, learn a ton for their tuition.

It definitely seems like a different kind of client he's targeting than we do here.  It's definitely more of a "pay off your mortgage so you have a free vacation home and maybe you'll even make a little too!" vibe than the life altering cash flow machines we try and generate here.  For instance, they are not a proponent of self managing and tell you that you should be hiring a property manager, which is the exact opposite of here.

Not intending to be critical here, but I did get a good chuckle from a recent podcast where Shawn was talking about expectations and mentioning that you should not necessarily expect to cash flow much if at all, but be happy if you do. In this market it's pretty much impossible NOT to cash flow in the STR world even if you just randomly start buying places without doing any research. I thought that was a good job of setting expectations low enough that it's almost impossible to not exceed them.

But that aside, overall it does seem like a good program that fits a niche.  I think there are plenty of people that have more money than time and would rather just spend a chunk to get reliable help through it than spend months learning it all at no cost.  There's nothing wrong with that imo, and the entire field of consulting exists on that notion.  

There are a lot of people for whom the time to learn it all on their own is a major roadblock that may prevent them from ever owning an STR. If paying a relatively small fee (in the grand scheme of things when it comes to STRs) can make STRs accessible to people that it otherwise wouldn't be then that is definitely a business that makes sense and can make sense for some set of clients. It seems like most of his ex-clients are doing pretty well and if they're living off their 10 STRs a few years from now they're not really going to care whether they spent $4800 to get started or did it for free with some extra work.

Did the properties you acquired allow you to self manage?  For me that is crucial there with the tight margins.  I self manage all my units in other markets currently (and even some units for other people).  It is very doable and saves a lot of money.

Isn't one of the stipulations of owning in those STR communities that you have to use their pre-selected property management company that takes 30% of gross revenue? That's revenue, not profit.

I own several very well cash flowing STRs and we looked in St George 6 months ago because we love to visit there and the numbers didn't make sense then.  I can't imagine they do now with prices going up even more.

I'm seeing 3br townhomes in STR communities going for like $800k, renting out at $200-$300 a night with 60% occupancy, and giving 30% of gross revenue away to property managers. There's no way new buyers are cash flowing well with those kind of numbers, imo. I'm happy to be proven wrong because we'd love to own there, but the underwriting there paints a pretty ugly picture.

Great place to buy if you like vacationing there and want renters to help supplement your mortgage.  But from a cash flow perspective it seems to make a lot more sense to use that money on a great cash flowing property elsewhere and using some of those profits to pay for an awesome St George vacation at a place much nicer than the one you could buy.

People generally don't rent AirBnBs in the town where they already live.

I have no idea the answer, but are people traveling IN to Oregon any notably less diverse than people traveling in to most other states? 

The dealbreaker here is going to be that you need to spend more time on your real estate activities than on any other job.  That is going to be extremely tough to do if you are working another full time job.

Are you married?  If you have a non-working spouse that is one way people do it, passing the real estate duties along to them.

The profile pic is already done everywhere.

I think the names thing is coming for everywhere as well.

This is just pre-booking, the name/pic are revealed after a reservation is accepted.