Vacation Rentals and AirBnb, your opinion?

[Nick Rutkowski]

Hello, My girlfriend and I are finishing up our first investment property and we are now looking for our next investment. We live in a tourist area and thought about buying a cottage on the lake and run an AirBnB out of it. Neither one of us have ran an AirBnB before or owned a "vacation" house. What is your experience with AirBnB and what should we look out for? Is analyzing a vacation home the same as a duplex?

[Myka Artis]

Airbnb is the way to go! Really great returns and you can double or even triple your monthly cash flow. Analyzing a vacation home is a bit different than analyzing a duplex because vacation rentals have down seasons which can be  profitable if you turn your rental into a corporate rental during that time but you also need to be aware of the economy of your area because sometimes corporate housing won't work during the down season. If you are able to make your target during the high season then the down season shouldn't hurt too bad.

Running an Airbnb is fairly easy. Are you managing it remotely or are you fairly close to the vacation home? If you are doing it remotely you just need a good lock and cleaner. Once you have those two things you are good to go. If you are close and will be hands on then it will be more money for you because you can keep your cleaning fees but it is more work.