Vacation property or no?

[Michael Hill]

Saving for a rental property. Selfishly, I’d love to buy a condo in a vacation town near where I live. I love the town and want it for my family, but I’d like to rent it out as well. Many do this in this town. I’d say most are between $350,000 to $450,000. I’m saving for 20% down. I love the idea of having others pay for my condo.  I’m in the process of acquiring some fixer upper skills as well. I’ll have the 20% by May. However, I’d also like to scale to multiple properties and have some cash flow. Would you buy a vacation rental or go a different route such as a multi family property elsewhere? Vacation rental market really excites me. 

[Richard Helppie-Schmieder]

Every home my business partner and I have purchased the last couple years we have done short-term rental first and every time the cashflow exceeds a long-term rental cashflow. Our strategy has always followed these 3 rules. 1.) Be able to value-add to build in equity. 2.) must be able to cash-flow as a long-term rental. 3.) Try short-term rental first to see if we can get higher net income. Hope this helps!