Rental Viability for Condos in New Smyrna, Florida or nearby

[Jon Schipp]

Hello all, new here. I finished reading The Book on Rental Property Investing by Brandon Turner and now I'm dipping my feet in. I hope I chose the right forum for the question.

I'm interested in owning a dual-purpose beach/oceanfront condo near Orlando (1-2hr drive) for renting most of the year and for family vacation use while vacant. I'm currently looking at the New Smyrna beach area. Ideally a positive cash flow, even it's lower than market returns.

My concern is around condo vacancies in the area. I have a family member who owns an oceanfront condo there, on the desired non-vehicle side of the beach. They rent it out, and while they love the condo for the family memories its created they take a loss on it each year because it's largely vacant outside of the 3-4 months they get snow birds.  I have asked them many questions and have received lots of useful numbers like insurance costs, property manager costs, maintenance costs, etc. but the one thing I'm uncertain about is their high vacancies.

I'm trying to find out the followings things:

1. Are dual-purpose condo rentals (renting and using for family) viable options for positive cash flow in general?
2. Is New Smyrna an area where condo vacancies are higher and should I look elsewhere?
3. For those familiar with the area, are there other factors that could be contributing to vacancies much of the year e.g outside of incompetent property manager?
4. Have you had success with condo rentals in the area or nearby?
5. Is vacancy data from Neighborhood Scout any good? A resource that could break down vacancies by property type would be awesome if that exists. I might not be looking at the right metric here anyway.