All Forum Posts by: Matt Jones

@Emilio Attardo I'm very familiar with the area and I know of several people who have had successful STR properties in Navy Point and in the Bayshore area, both of which are right outside the front gate of NAS Pensacola and fairly convenient to downtown. Depending on where your property is located in Warrington it could do well. Be sure to reach out to the Navy Housing office on base. It's run by the local association of realtors and is separate from base housing, housing office volunteers focus on finding active duty and veteran service members privately owned housing options like yours. Good luck!

@Nathan Kawalerski what strategy are you planning to use for your Pensacola investing?  What are your investing goals

Pensacola is a great market but, as others have mentioned, you will want a great team on the ground here to ensure your success!

There are several great local lenders that do VA loans very well and are experienced in working with investors. It makes a BIG difference to work with a good local lender so good question! I'll PM you a few of my favorite VA & Investor friendly mortgage brokers.

Welcome Lee! Pensacola is a great market for both STR & BRRRR investing. STR is starting to get saturated in the middle of and outskirts of town and there is a lot of competition there but I anticipate that investing in traditional vacation areas like the beaches(Pensacola Beach, Navarre Beach, Perdido Key and right downtown) will continue to offer a good return. LTR investments through BRRRR continue to be a great play here as long as you get a good deal at purchase.

The Pensacola area consists of three main beach areas: Pensacola Beach, Perdido Key and Navarre Beach. All three areas do really well with STR but each have their own distinct feel. Will you also be using this as a 2nd home or is this for profit only? Either way, I'd recommend a trip to check out the area if you haven't been before. Tour a few properties in your price range in each area, the areas were built up at different times so the types of available properties and quality of those properties will vary. My wife and I have a vacation rental on Pensacola Beach that does really well but I have clients experiencing the same success in Perdido Key and Navarre Beach so they are all good options as long as you select a good property where the numbers work. Good luck!

@Tony Longoria I recommend talking to your property manager about the current rent vs market rent.  If you have a tenant that has been there several years or you just haven't done a market analysis of the rental rate recently you may be blown away by the current market rent.  It's not uncommon for rents to fall well behind market and Pensacola has seen a huge increase in rent since 2015(and even since 2019) so you may be able to refi and still cashflow positive by raising your rent to a more appropriate level.  It's a great time to sell with inventory so low but if your preference is to keep the property I'd just encourage you to dig deeper into the current numbers because it sounds like there is more opportunity there.

Also, on the 1031 exchange.  I believe that you can use the proceeds to buy more than one replacement property as long as you work within the timeframe and ID guidelines for replacement properties.  Most 1031 intermediaries would be happy to verify that for you and have an initial conversation at no charge.

Congrats on the nice chunk of equity & good luck!

With $2k income and it sounds like approx $350k value each the properties may not offer a ton of cash flow after you refi. I'm all for doing a refi and using the proceeds to grow when it makes sense but just keep in mind that it doesn't always make sense. If your not looking at enough cash flow to make it worth managing and maintaining an out of state property you might consider just selling both and reinvesting closer to home. Pensacola is a great market for investing and has a good mix of LTR & STR options.

I agree with @John Underwood, I would just clearly describe that it was 1 bathroom in the listing, I think having a second bathroom advertised that is hard to access would be more likely to garner bad reviews than just having one bathroom.  Also, I would be very surprised if your best strategy for generating revenue isn’t to rent the two units separately.  You can have a local short term rental property manager run a projection for you both ways to make sure.  

Hey @Ryan Porter, 

Pensacola Beach, Perdido Key,FL(immediately over the state line from Orange Beach) and Orange Beach, AL are all great markets but have more differences than you’d expect. I only cover Pensacola Beach and Perdido Key but I’ll PM you one of my colleagues that is very experienced and serves all three areas.  

99% is wasteland?  Really weird that people are snapping up these "way overpriced" properties faster than they are being listed then..  Any decent size city has some areas that are nicer than others so of course Pensacola has some areas that are run down but it also has some really great areas, a lot of natural beauty, some charming historical areas, proximity to two beautiful beaches and a lot more to offer.  I recommend that anyone interested take a visit to the area and form your own opinion.