Anyone ever built a Silo Home? Possibly building multifamily

[Robert Arquilla]

Hello all! 

A little about me to frame the post.  I have been working in commercial construction for almost 6 years now.  Last year I bought my first single family rental (B- neighborhood) after about 5 years of listening to BP podcasts and it has been doing great.  Very good cash flow and it has definitely appreciated over the year I had it.  I just went through a tenant turn over and it went pretty well.

Now my grand plan. I have found some land that is zoned for multi family and I recently heard about the VA 0 down Construction Loan. This has me very interested in moving out of my primary residence and building a silo home or duplex on this property. When I do this I would rent out my primary residence which is in a A neighborhood and would probably net 400-500 per month in cash flow. A little bit of background about my area, It's a small rural town about an hour from Cleveland and 75 mins from Pittsburgh. We have a small state park that about 2 million people visit each year (this number surprised me). A lot of people come to camp and fish there. There are a couple air bnbs that seem to do okay but there is nothing unique about them.

What I'm asking for is help/thoughts/ideas with this:

1. Has anyone had any experience with building silo homes? Any ideas on cost per square foot? Im thinking if I create a unique listing on Airbnb (After I live in this for a year to meet the VA loan requirements) I can create a competitive advantage by having such a unique property and demand a higher price per night as well as keep the occupancy up.

2. My other thought was to build a duplex or triplex on the lot but I think that would be a little more expensive and not quite sure if it would cash flow.  I have a lot of research to do on this and talking to a couple builders to pin down the details.

3. Another thought/ long term plan I had was to make it a mini unique airbnb multifamily as in, have a silo home, then maybe put an airstream on it and lastly maybe an A-frame cabin.  Its a little over 5 acres so there is some space that I think 2-3 places would work.

Thanks for the input!