All Forum Posts by: Robin Searle

@Lesley Resnick we have a 2/2/1 in Old Colorado City in Colorado Springs and use a management company. It's been extremely profitable so far. We started in December last year and it took a couple of months to get reviews but it's been booked pretty solid since. I'll be interested to see how we do this fall and early winter. We are finishing out a studio on the same property and plan to do STR with that as well. I can't say enough about how much we love our management company!

@Cameron Belknap - I would say familiarize yourself with the various neighborhoods. Many of the fourplexes here are in C or lower neighborhoods. They are also typically surrounded by quite a few other fourplexes and it's important to have a look at the upkeep of those. You can make your property as nice as you want, but you can't control what the other owners are doing. If you then find that's where you are comfortable owning rentals, then I'd run the numbers.

@Umar S WIse If you keep your home and turn it into a rental property and want to continue investing in real estate, you can always do a 1031 exchange down the road to avoid paying the capital gains.  Do a quick google search for the general idea of an exchange. That might relieve some of the pressure you're feeling about having to make a decision based on the tax issue. Another option would be to move back in for two years to re-establish it as a primary residence before you sell it if your situation allowed.  

@Aaron T. Join the Facebook pages COSTRA Chat and Colorado Springs Short Term Rental Alliance. I’ve seen cleaners advertising on there.

@Aaron T. If you are looking for full service management, I highly recommend Hoste! They are doing an awesome job for us!

Colorado Springs is still a very hot sellers market. There are deals to be found but in the lower price points, you'll have a tough time as there is a lot of competition from buyers.  I'm still seeing multiple offers and homes going for above list price. Multi-family has been very tough to find anything that will cash flow with 20% down. I'm sure there are off market properties but I also know there are a lot of investors angling for those as well. I get about 10 postcards a week offering to buy my personal home or my rental properties for cash.  Um - no thanks!  LOL

@Mark Manship - some good points and I'll add that STR owners are MUCH more likely to take excellent care of their properties, both interior and exterior, than long term rental owners. Not saying "all" by any means because I take great care of all my rentals whether long or short term. However, an STR relies on looking attractive on both inside and outside in order to generate good reviews. The landscaping, exterior of the building, and the cleaning inside is an ongoing process and concern. The property we bought in Old Colorado City had a dirt yard filled with weeds. We invested a lot of money to rehab the property, totally re-landscaped it, painted the garage and storage sheds and added new garage doors. I believe we've added value to the neighborhood, not brought it down. I've had zero complaints from neighbors. I see long term rentals all the time in what would otherwise be considered a beautiful neighborhood that are sadly kept up and our city council has absolutely no concern about regulating those.

@Russell Brazil speaking to your occupancy limits, I fail to see how having a family with 1 couple and 3 or 4 kids should be forced to rent a three bedroom. When my kids were little, we couldn't afford that and we would have never, ever been able to vacation if someone made an arbitrary rule like that. We do limit our STR to 5 because we have two bedrooms (1 king and 1 queen) and also provide a roll away. I don't want a huge party going on but I also don't want to exclude families that may have chosen to have more than two children!

@Joe Splitrock Most STR owners in Colorado Springs were quite happy to work with the city on the reasonable regulation we came up with. As James points out, there have been very, very few complaints to the city and code enforcement. There are a couple of councilmen who are very obviously opposed to STR's and one of them came up with this recent idea to limit occupancy and also to cap permits in one way or another. The occupancy cap, I believe, is aimed at stopping large groups from all piling into one STR but the way it's being approached makes no sense. I have a 2 bedroom/2 bath and also provide a rollaway. The way his proposal reads, if a couple with 3 kids wants to rent my STR, it would be illegal. That's absurd. It's also unenforceable. Our code enforcement office doesn't have the time or resources to go around banging on doors and demanding to know how many people are staying in a home. The current regulation provides neighbors an avenue to make a complaint for excessive noise or traffic and that's what code enforcement should focus on. I wrote our councilman who is pushing for more and more regulation and urged him to see how the current regulation works for the city (it was only implemented in January of this year). Again, we have had very few complaints so I think he's responding to one particularly vocal group here.

@Zachary Wiederstein I’m in the Springs as well. Most lenders won’t do a Heloc on an investment although I’m sure there is someone out there who would - I just haven’t found one. Talk with Rich Dillman at Caliber I’m Briargate. He can help with cash out refinancing.

@Jacob Mueller are you looking for an appraiser to give a value for cash offer buyers? A bit confused since you are an agent.