Every lender can potentially have different terms, whether it’s the distance between your primary home and the vacation property, or the frequency of time you must spend there.

A lot of them will shy away from investors because they don’t speak the same language, can’t estimate rehab costs, and see no value in spending a lot of time finding good deals.

I will also have to say if you have poor spending habits or in debt to work on those areas.

I don’t know if there’s a new “guru” in town, but this is the 3rd time I’ve seen this identical scenario today. 1) don’t lie about it being your primary, move in and spend 2 out of 5 years there. 2) if you’ve owned it for 5 years and then live there for 2 years you will get 30% (2 out of 7 years as a primary) tax free.

My 5 year goal is to earn enough passive income to be able to quit my job and spend more time with my family while traveling where I want, when I want!

Golden Rule #1:  NEver, ever, for any reason, spend your "seed money". 

(photography, video production, meetings, etc) This is for companies to rent your place so you can usually charge more and they don't typically spend the night, just book for like 6 or 8 hours type of thing.The other thing you could do would be direct bookings which would require a website and some type of marketing to drive folks to your website. ( Social media, SEO ads, etc.)

In my part of the world the good PMs charge 10% a month, so how many do you need to have to generate significant extra income....20-30-50, then when you get that many how much time do you spend accounting, phone calls, dispatching maintenance, etc. 

I recommend against not having any additional income while you spend more money to improve the place Best, Michael

We budgeted $250k for the addition and updates, but ended up spending over $450k.