All Forum Posts by: Ryan Moyer

 It is in Champions Gate.  So about 9 miles, or 45 minutes with traffic :P

I bought it at 568k in May and renovated it, going live in October.

The same house is probably closer to $650k now.

"Renovations" were an arcade garage build, and two Disney themed rooms with custom bunk beds, slide, etc.  I spent $20k on the arcade garage, $20k on the main theme room, and $5k on the other more lightly themed room.

I bought one of the 8 BRs in Champions Gate this year and themed it out all Disney style, which I think is a necessity in this market.

I just launched it a couple weeks ago and already have about $10k on the books for Nov and $11k for Dec.  Shoot me a PM if you have any questions, happy to help fellow BP members entering the market.

Also make sure you note that AirBnB/VRBO collect/remit Florida taxes in the area, but DO NOT collect Osceola tourist taxes (about 6%).  I see that most new listings are not charging this which means they're going to get hit with a surprise tax bill at the end of the year.

I thought it was something about 750 hours spent per year.  But someone better versed will have to verify that.

From FDR himself...

“In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.

By business I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.”

But that's even beyond the scope of what we're talking about here.  We're all spoiled because back in our day we could work 15 hours a week at Hardees and pay our entire college tuition and room and board.  Now someone working 40 hours a week at the same job can barely even pay rent with it in a lot of places.

And stuff like virtual kiosks at McDonald's are coming either way.  Those were being put in long before the minimum wage moved at all.  Not that it really matters because the issue is not a shortage of jobs, it's a shortage of people willing to live like animals so we can get our burgers 30 seconds faster.  

But anyway, we're a long ways off-topic from "how will rising gas prices affect STRs", so I'll let this go :P

Agreed.  Gas prices ebb and flow and are actually cheaper right now than they were 10 years ago, so it seems extremely silly to me to blame inflation on that.

I'm no economist, but something like 60% of all USD currently in circulation having been printed since the start of 2020 seems the much more likely culprit.  And while I understand the fed doing QE to support the stock market when the bottom was falling out I have no idea why it has still continued when the the market was back on ATHs more than a year ago.

Whether it's other jobs, or trading crypto, or making online dropshipping businesses, or whatever it is they found better ways to make money just like everyone had been sarcastically telling them to for 20 years.

This "labor shortage" is something we earned.  Decades of catch-up.  The local ski resort here recently posted that they were canceling the summer concert series because they couldn't find workers "even though we're offering great wages and a sign-on bonus".  It was a pity post, looking for people to bash lazy millennials for them on Facebook.  But their ex-employees were pretty quick to point out the problem.  10 years ago they were making $7/hr and could buy a home nearby for $150k, or find any of a bunch of LTRs available at reasonable rates.  Now they can sign-on for a $250 one-time bonus and $15/hr (twice as much!) but the cheapest home nearby is $1m+ and there are pretty much zero long-term rentals in the valley because it's nothing but vacation homes.

Everything has been rising quickly the last couple decades except wages for low wage workers.  The idea we can just double it real quick and make up for all that lost ground, especially for a new generation that has found dozens of creative ways to make money that way we don't even understand (anyone minted any NFTs lately?) was doomed from the start, imo.

I'm not sure it will be short term.  We're catching up on decades of real estate and living costs rising hundreds of percent while wages for these types of jobs remained stagnant or increased slowly.  When they complained everyone told them to find a better way to make money if they didn't like it, and now they have.

I'm not sure why $25/hr and no one jumping at it is interested is surprising.  Real estate and living costs in some of these places have increased by 1000% or more since they were making $7/hr there 15 years ago.  A lot of places are flumoxed they can't find someone to flip burgers for $15/hr or whatever, as if a 100% increase in wages when rent/living costs have increased by 800% is somehow a great deal.

Markets are back on ATHs after the greatest 6 month bull run in history, and everyone seems to have more money than they know what to do with.  Adults have gobs of money from the market and kids have gobs of money from crypto and meme stocks.  I am not really worried about gas prices affecting travel personally.

That's not even to mention a lot of the people we're booking at high rates are people that are going on driving vacations because the international vacations they usually spend $10k-$15k on are closed right now.  I doubt they stress too much about gas prices especially since they've all probably made huge coin in the markets.

When I looked into it a while back it seemed to me like Blue Ridge was 80% of the prices in the Smokies with 50% of the revenue.  But that may have been flawed or may have changed since then since obviously people are still buying there a lot.