All Forum Posts by: Robert Gilstrap

Amazon and Wayfair both offer financing for purchases. I have a company that has sent me multipl eadvertisements that finances and revenue shares on furniture. They do the install and design, then you pay based on the income it brings in (with a min of course). Trying to find their info.

LOT of furniture places out there will do this. Some have entire divisions devoted to it (CORT furniture has a STR division).

Also consider contacting staging companies and working out a revenue split. They have LOTS of furniture that mostly sits in a warehouse not earning any return on investment so they might be willing to work a similar deal. 

@John Underwood you make a good point but you fail to recognize two major limiting factors of self management: The skill/expertise required to self manage and the value one places on their own time. 

Someone who makes $60K a year values their time FAR differently than someone who makes $360K a year.  Age and life experience in general also weigh heavily on ones decision to engage in certain activities.  

When I was 20 years old it made no sense for me to pay someone to change my oil or cut my grass or paint a room. In fact I enjoyed the experience somewhat because I was learning something new. 

At 50 years of age I now cannot fathom why I would ever do any of those things when I can hire it out for a fraction of what my time is worth and get a better and faster result in the process.

@David White  Hi David, I'm actually a past President of the Atlanta NARPM chapter and I can echo what others have said above as to expertise and professionalism of NARPM property managers. They really are the "major league" players in a world of farm league companies.

My company manages about 500 properties all over Atlanta including long term, short term and corporate rentals. Happy to assist in any way so give me a call.

@Harsh R. If you buy something in the Acworth, Kennesaw, Woodstock or Marietta areas my company will lease it from you on a corporate lease depending on the property/area. I'm looking for properties there right now to lease.

Cool, makes sense, thanks for the insight.

I agree with @John Underwood; unless this property stays at max occupancy and is occupied 90% of the time I don't think you'll have much of an issue at all. Of course guests flushing god knows what down the toilets may cause issues  but not much you can do to stop that.

@Mike LambertWhat do you think of the arbitrage idea instead of buying outright?

I have 13 virtual assistants in central America (11 in Mexico) and I was considering using them to help me get a few Airbnb's going down there but only looked at it from a high level thus far. I was also not intending to buy anything as I was under the impression they still had restrictions on foreign investment in coastal properties but instead was going to just do arbitrage and rent a condo or house. So what have you guys run into in the way of problems? My VA's assure me that cleaning is dirt cheap, utilities are dirt cheap, rent is not so cheap (for a nice place). I have no idea how much or what logistical challenges I would have in the way of furnishing, buying electronics, etc.

I think the more little things like that you have in a kitchen the more it feels like a home and think about how cheap it is. We're starting to put olive oil/cooking oil, salt/pepper, basic cleaning supplies, etc. So far people aren't stealing anything (yet) but we learned to ration out most things like tide pods, trash bags, cascade pods, batteries, etc. Either way the owner gets charged for the stuff but there are a LOT of little things that add up in a home. HVAC filters, sugar packets, splenda packets, tea, coffee pods, creamer...the list goes on....

when I buy a 24 pack of paper towels at costco and a 48 pack of toilet paper and AA batteries and coffee pods, tide pods, dish soap, cascade pods, light bulbs, etc. then we just bill the owner for it (marked up slightly to account for our purchase and delivery) and then stock the supply closet on site with the supplies. When it gets low, rinse and repeat.