I want to hear about your recent wins!

[Jaimie Abert]

Hi all! I am looking for an expander - someone who can make me "see to believe." I'd love to hear your stories about a recent purchase that you made that's been a cash flow win for you. (I know cash flow isn't everything, but it is what I'm looking for in my next purchase).

I am fairly new in my real estate journey. My partner and I bought our first home in January 2020 that we house hack. We converted the first floor into an airbnb with a separate entrance, and the top floor is our living space that we share with a roommate - we're not necessarily cash flowing every month, but our mortgage is usually at least covered. 
Our second purchase was in a semi sketchy neighborhood because that's what we could get our hands on in October 2021, but we rented the property on section 8 and were originally cash flowing about $200/month until our taxes increased and then we were at a $200 deficit each month. 
Our third property we decided to go out of state because South Florida is pretty pricey and we had more buying power elsewhere. We purchased a quadplex in Alabama, 2 units are rented to long term renters, and the other two units are set up as furnished short/mid term rentals. We've only owned this for about 3 months but we're finally getting some traction in our short term units as it took a long time to get our business license. 

Now, because we were losing money on our second property that we purchased, we decided not to renew the lease and want to 1031 Exchange the property into something that we can feel proud of to offer as a short term rental and actually get cash flow from.

TL;DR

It feels very daunting in this South Florida market and I'd love to hear from someone in a pricey market who bought during these relatively high interest rates and is making a profit.

I'd also love to hear from you if you have success stories about managing your short term rentals from afar - I have a lot of fear around not having eyes on our out of state property and not being able to manage the cleanliness standards myself. 

Thank you!