All Forum Posts by: Robert Gilstrap

@Lisa Sperber Charleston is a great place to do STR's but you do have to work around the restrictions. Also, regardless of what the naysayers preach here arbitrage is a great way to get started and I would argue less risky than owning in many ways. I agree that owning should be your long term goal but getting started somewhere is what's most important.

I'm not super educated but I find it astonishing that these guys don't see arbitrage as "investing". 

Investing is the act of allocating resources, usually money, with the expectation of generating an income or profit.

So you rent a property for X, furnish it and then collect rent of Y. The difference is profit.  Sounds like investing to me...

@Blake Ramsey Guessing you will get plenty of naysayers responding but I can tell you that arbitrage works wonderfully for me. There is risk for sure but that risk can largely be mitigated with proper agreements and planning. Big picture is that long term ownership should be the ultimate goal but arbitrage is a great way to get started.

Couple of ways to approach that comes to mind:

In every state to my knowledge if you are a "principal" in the transaction then you are exempt from any licensing requirement. So for instance; say you master lease a property then you put the tenant in there as a sub lease and you collect your fee out of that would be one way.  Don't take my word for it since I'm not in North Carolina, go find out.

Some states allow for referral fees but many do not. Check your local laws for that. 

Partnering with an agent would obviously be an easy option as you mention; then he/she satisfies the regulatory stuff and you can get him/her to do some of the heavy lifting and everybody gets paid.

@Brian Plajer I suppose you could charge but I'm not sure I would do that. I see it as a marketing tool and a way to one up your competitors.

I think adding that would be a great addition for not a crazy amount of money.

@Joshua Strickland  Their website all looks to be marketing to other mortgage brokers and it all appears to be centered around wholesale lending meaning your mortgage person might have gone through them for the underwriting of your loan. If you dealt with them direct then thats great I will call them for sure.

@Joshua Strickland   Their website looks like they are only a wholesale lender do they originate for non-mortgage broker types?

@Michael Baum    Yeah I never knew about the thread thing until someone in the hotel industry showed me.  I was like "genius". These hotel folks have it down to a science! I'm in the process of opening my own "mini-laundry" facility to handle our stuff because its just turned into a MUCH bigger job than I ever expected. Essentially a rental house filled with washers and dryers and I'll staff it with someone. I'm also looking for a commercial laundry steam machine. The hotel folks showed me that pretty much they can get any stain out with about 3 different chemicals and that pressurized steam wand. 

@Michael Baumundefined

@Michael Baum  yeah I would love to test some Kohls sheets myself if for no other reason to have an emergency backup (especially in light of recent supply chain issues). I think our problems are two fold with consumer marketed sheets. 

1. We only use standard size pillows on all bed sizes so any consumer sheets they always come with king size pillow cases (depending on bed size) and those would end up going in the trash.

2. We do double sheeting on all our beds which means one fitted then a flat then the duvet, then another flat sheet much like what hotels do and of course consumer sheets never comes with two flat sheets so I'm stuck again unless I buy in major bulk and just move the sheets around to make  up a full "set" from what I bought. 

One thing I do like about commercial sheets is ours come pre-washed so no washing once they arrive and a huge thing is that commercial sheets have a tracer thread woven into the hem to quickly identify sheet size (i.e. blue thread = king, green = queen, etc.) so the housekeepers know what they have in their hands but more importantly for the staff sorting sheets when they are laundered. Sounds like a small thing but it is crazy important when you have 1,000 lbs. of sheets being washed in bulk and they have to be sorted, folded and stacked quickly.

@Bruce Woodruff are you not buying commercial hotel sheets? If not, you will continue to have problems. 80/20 cotton blend and they aren't cheap but they last. We buy ours from Standard textile which supplies many national hotel chains. If you want cheaper than posted prices from them join HostGPO as they have pre-negotiated pricing. Also you will have to get used to buying in bulk since sheets get much more expensive when not buying by the case.

Towels on the other hand we have begun migrating to Costco brand hospitality towels which are about what I am already paying with Standard textile but available quickly and sometimes even better quality.