All Forum Posts by: Sean Bramble

Thanks everyone! Seems pretty unanimous. This is actually really useful info. Reason I ask is I'm trying to get inside the mind of the guest in anyway I can. So if I can look at a market that is primarily booking on VRBO I might decide to tailor my listing to an older or family oriented audience … or the exact opposite for an Airbnb market. I’ve also noticed reading reviews on the platform give a good sense of who is staying and why they are there. Thanks again!

Can’t comment on the this market specifically, but make sure to ask others who are more experienced WHEN they invested your area. It’s easy to say “yeah my property is performing great!” when they bought in 2019 and have significantly lower monthly payments driving meaty cashflow. Agents in the area will also usually weigh in and say the area is great. Nothing wrong with this - it could actually be a home run of a market, just make sure you are comfortable with your underwriting.

I suggest buying data for your market on Pricelabs specifically ($10-20/ mo - worth it). Instead of spitting out an estimate like Airdna does, you’ll actually be able to find comps that match your property type and the design/ photos you think you can deliver. They’ll show you what they earned last year so you can get a sense of what to expect, but be sure to look at revenue/ occupancy trends over time to see if the market is trending down post-2021 (and give their totals a haircut for your own forward looking projections if so). Also realize that your closest comps may not be pricing correctly and leaving a ton of money on the table. Price optimized comps usually have occupancy around 70+% depending on the market.

Projecting revenue is a bit mindbending, especially after 2020/21 when consumer behavior was very abnormal, but don’t let that scare you away from making a great investment - underwrite conservatively and you should do great! Good luck!

@Ryan Moyer is this specific to one market or nationwide?

I’ll be direct here and suggest you consider other management companies or self managing 

I havent used them myself but I’ve been doing market research across the US looking at comps in many markets. More often than not when I come across an Evolve property the photos are sub-par (too much HDR- looks like a cartoon/ impossible to judge depth), and the revenue management leaves tons of cash on the table compared to revenue optimized comps in that same market (they either set the price too low sacrificing revenue, or too high sacrificing occupancy)

With these two variables out of sync it often equates to tens of thousands of dollars left on the table. And since your COC return is largely a function of exceeding your fixed costs - especially your PITI - most of these dollars left on the table would have been essentially pure profit.

I'm sure they do manage some properties well, and would still be far better than self-managing for many folks who want to completely outsource, but based on my research I would really suggest either looking into self managing with the help of the types of software available today (check the forum for posts on STR technology stack folks are using) or shopping around elsewhere for a manager that really delivers on the revenue management side.

Best of luck! (And my apologies if this offends anyone in here using Evolve, or anyone working for Evolve for that matter - these are just the trends I’ve been noticing in my research).

Oh yeah, forgot to mention- This won't be super comparable to what I assume you would do in the Northeast, but here is a link to a great converted motel my gf and I stay at whenever we drive through Santa Fe https://elreycourt.com/?gclid=...

@Brian Kantor sounds like you know your stuff - solid underwriting. One thing that might be worth cross-referencing is any other motels in the area. Can't necessarily pull Airbnb data for this, but you could look at their calendars and rates online. If there are none, could be worth finding another market similar to yours to see at least how renovated motels are performing vs standard 1 br Airbnbs. Either way, this project sounds insanely interesting and I wish you the best of luck! Keep us posted on your progress

I actually just came across a post in a facebook group this evening offering 40 year DSCR loans on STR purchases ... first time i've come across a 40 year term in my research. Website was investormortgagesource.com. Post said they do 30 and 40 year, but i noticed the website doesn't mention 40 year ... anywho, might be worth looking into if you go the DSCR route (but keep in mind i haven't worked with this company before so can't vouch for them)

Has anyone else seen DSCR lenders offering 40 year terms for STR purchases?

Nothing to add other than I'm loving this thread :)

Curious what the dominant booking platform within a market might say about the type of guests visiting that market ...

I would guess that VRBO skews older/ family, and Airbnb skews younger/ groups of friends or couples ON AVERAGE ... but that could be a terrible oversimplification (or maybe I'm just entirely wrong).

Have any of you noticed a pattern in your market that proves/ disproves this theory? Any other differences between guests that you've noticed between platforms? Be sure to mention the market you're referring to

DSCR lender at 80% and even sometimes 85% LTV. They don't look at your DTI. Search the forum - there are several posts about this going into detail. Good luck!