Newbie is South Florida - Airbnb & house hacking

[Indiana Eugenia Castillo]

Hi! I've been following the forums and I've learned so much in the past few weeks from reading people's questions and the responses as well. I only wish I would've discovered this website years ago! Thank you so much to all of you for the knowledge you are willing to share! I live in Fort Lauderdale, FL and I am interested in getting into REI. My plan is to purchase a triplex and follow the house hacking approach but instead of long term rentals, I want to use the units as AIRBNBs. I am a first time home buyer, planning to put 3.5-5% down. I am very excited, but scared. The market is not cheap (unless it's a bad neighborhood) but I know there is great opportunity. I am near the airport, cruise port, and beaches. And I plan to go in on this investment with my dad 50/50 so I know we will get approved for a good amount. I haven't gotten a definite number, but it looks like we will get a rate around 3-4%. But I am the one crunching the numbers and talking to banks, and I am afraid of getting us into a "bad deal." There are so many other numbers to take into account, and a lot of them are unknown to me at this point. So it's hard to predict what the cash flow can be and whether a property is a good deal or not. I watched the series of videos and I know that "any deal can be a good deal if you play with the numbers"... but its not that easy when you aren't sure what each number should be. I am afraid I will get a triplex, barely make $100 in cash flow, and never get approved by a bank again to move forward in my real estate investments. I've played with the calculators on BP and it seems pretty straight forward, BUT then I read forums of how those calculators are not taking into account some numbers that may affect the results you are seeing significantly.

Despite the unknowns, I certainly plan to move forward because I know that even if I fail this first time, it will at least be a learning process. But if I can avoid failing, that would be great too lol. Thank you in advance!