My Tip for Market Analysis

[Ben Weatherhead]

If you are like me you are eager to get into real estate investing in one form or another. For me the short term vacation rental market was the niche I wanted to play in. I have worked in the hotel industry for many years and still to this day my favorite job was working at Disney. It was not because Disney was a great company (it was, don't get me wrong) but it was seeing families who had saved up their money come down to this magical place to relax, unwind and reconnect with their families. Being able to help create such positive life memories for these families was so rewarding and is something I want to do full time.

The next step was to take this pie in the sky idea and manifest it into reality. I was struggling to find a market analysis for my location - I was looking to understand over the last 5-10 years what has the occupancy been like, what have the average rates looked like and then using this information to understand roughly how many nights I can anticipate renting my unit out for and what the average rate would need and could be to see if this would be a good fit. Of course there are many other considerations like where in the town you are located, how many bedrooms, local ordinances, association rules etc but I was looking to get a 20,000 foot view of the area first then dive deeper.

For me the most successful way to understand the market was to connect with local realtors and property managers. I reached out to two or three and after sharing what my goals were with the property managers they were able to help me understand the market a little better. In addition to understanding the market better I was able to work with the property managers and get a feel for who I believe can take care of and sell my unit the best.

If you are like me and the struggle was performing a market analysis on your desired location I recommend reaching out to realtors and properties managers in your desired area and I recommend chatting with a few to get a well rounded outlook.

How about you BiggerPockets do you have any other recommendations on how to understand an area's occupancy history, average rent, etc?

Hope it was helpful!