All Forum Posts by: William Beck

If it's on the lake, I'm sure you can get interested travelers. I worked with a buyer down in Mentor-on-the-Lake, Ohio and I had no idea if it was going to work out. They ended up blowing it out of the water. Just triple check your local regulations and make sure there's not a Short Term rental ban. 

I would still consider those areas to be tops. I spoke with consultants at my job position and they were in agreement on the market areas but would add Broken Bow to the top of the list as well. I think the deals have become a lot more challenging to find now vs. 6 months ago. We might get to a point here where inventory levels will start to free up though since all of these market areas are ending their peak season within the next month or two but I would be very cautious regarding what the sellers of these properties are asking vs. what they are earning. @Carly M.

If you are using appraisal with plan for commercial use they may be able to factor historical information, but I would doubt they'd have the experience or speculation to factor what potential short term rental income could be. This is definitely an industry challenge as revenue can have a wide range.

Very interesting. I know Big Island has been killer with the STR Regulations for the past few years. Definitely worth reaching out to a Big Island agent that knows their stuff on this subject matter if someone on BP doesn't know the answer. I'm curious to see what happens though!

Not to strike fear in your heart, but I only see 9 total vacation rentals on Pine Mountain Lake using the VRBO map with an open calendar. Then there are 7 on Airbnb. 

Generally if there are less than 20 vacation rentals in a given 3-4-5 mile radius, it's a cause for concern since it just begs the question - how come others aren't doing this? Is it because there's a general lack of interest in booking here? Is there some sort of regulation for that area? Are the occupancy #'s you're using in your assumptions accurate if it's actually pulling from on Lower Whitefish Lake or one of the other lake epicenters in the Brainerd market?

You can always make the justification that if your property is really nicely appointed (nice kitchen, nice furniture, fresh paint, great interior decor), sleeps a bunch of people, has fun amenities (hot tub, swimming pool, pool table, outdoor kitchen area, manicured firepit) and things for people to do: they will book it out regardless of where it's at.
But, if you're trying to put something together on a relatively tight budget and purely investment minded those things cost money and reduce your return. Message me if you want to chat further @K F.

Where is the property located? 

25 years old is industry standard

My biggest concern would be property management options in the area. From my experience the Outer Banks are pretty notorious for not having a ton of management options available at a good price. Since it's such a remote island area, you're basically stuck with one of the local management options and they can leverage that to do the old "My way (price) or the highway." *plus if you need to fire them for any reason, who is there to replace them??? 
Performance concerns would get trumped when a management company's charging a massive % and there's no self management option. You might be able to find a cleaner but I feel like out there it's the property management cartel that runs the show. This is a unique thing for the Outer Banks area. Just heads up. @Patrick Sullivan

You're absolutely right about the challenge of buying a property when it's a successful vacation rental. If it's good and booked out the majority of the time, it does get hard to get in there and do a virtual showing. Also another challenge about buying a vacation rental that's super popular is getting time allocated for inspections/appraisal to fit in between the calendar gaps. Look at trying to have your agent get in there for a showing if there's a turnover within the next couple of days. The biggest risk there is that someone else might just go ahead and buy the property before you get a chance to see it. I don't know what the Florida real estate contract stipulates as far as contingency for property review period but I would hope there's a time to review relevant information for the property where if somethings not to your liking at the very beginning you can release from the contract and let someone else take a stab at buying it!

If you're looking to live in it from May-Oct and rent as LT rental or STR - I would personally do the STR route without a doubt. The amount of money you can make in the Dec-April timeframe is pretty extraordinary and could be double what you'd get for a long term tenant in that time frame. I've always considered an investment with a hybrid strategy where there's a 6 month lease for someone from May-Oct and then short term renting it for the other months because there is a ton of upside there. Owners that just own a property and rent as a short term rental from Nov-April aren't going to get too many bookings in the summertime. *Unless* the property has incredible location and amenities, where it could still get rented out thru the summer slow season.