How to do an STR without owning a property?

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How to do an  STR without owning a property?

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@Jon Kelly I found it very strange that he wasn’t willing to help or just answer a simple question… from a seminar he hosted. He makes an absolute killing if people enroll. I hope he is successful and grows his businesses. Just not for me. I prefer BP. Very beneficial to be involved here.

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@Steven Seguin that's weird "Dave" didn't share all of his secrets with you... Maybe if you buy his course he'll give you all of the answers. He probably makes more money on his courses than real estate... @Jaron Walling is spot on. It's rental arbitrage. It can be done but it's a huge hustle. Think of it as a shady version of wholesaling. One of the biggest downsides is you don't own any real estate... You miss out on the benefits of owning an asset: appreciation, tax benefits, etc.

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@Steven Seguin What you're describing is rental arbitrage (AirBnb Arbitrage). It only works when the lease you sign doesn't include a clause specifically prohibiting it. Some apartments and single family homes don't allow it, some do, and others don't mention it at all. Connecting with investors actively doing this and getting a current copy of a lease from a property is probably the best way to start searching. "This person, Dave"... is taking risk using this type of investment strategy. All types of investing come with risk but in my opinion this is bottle of the barrel. You don't really control anything doing rental arbitrage. All you control is user experience with some cash-flow at the end of the month. It doesn't capitalize on other wealth building pillars associated with real estate investing. You don't own the asset. You can't leverage the property. You can't value add. It's become trendy because there's nothing else to buy. Real property is hard to buy. That's just my opinion. As a novice in this regard I'm wondering where the units are located and if they're all in the same apartment complex. If so that would increase my curiosity only from a maintenance prospective. You could even hire a regular tenant to manage cleanings since they live next door. Not sure how these investors handle it on a larger scale. Double digit arbitraged units sounds like a full time job.

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@Steven Seguin Salt Lake City is a great market and I'm not doubting arbitrage can be a successful strategy. For a lot of reasons it's just not for me. The strategy holds hands with tourism and destination locations. That type of property is the first to crushed when people stop spending money or the owner changes the rules. Waiting for a guru to chime in and tell us we're all wrong...If you stay in the BP forums long enough you'll be reading stories from experienced investors from all over the country. They don't talk about arbitrage. They talk about privately owned STR and LT rentals. They talk about owning real property that doubles as a vacation home when it's not booked on Airbnb or VRBO. It's a win-win.

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@Jaron Walling that’s exactly my thoughts! The only reason arbitrage is enticing is because of the potential cash flow to get some quick-ish capital. I’m definitely looking forward to being more involved in the BP forums here. Thanks again!

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@Jaron Walling I appreciate you responding to this! One of the biggest reasons that I’m considering this method is the fast capital gains. My long term goal is to have rentals and eventually apartment complexes. The location of these apartment are in Salt Lake City. There are a small handful that are involved with this. The language in the initial pitch was catered to a short term ‘corporate’ rental. Which allowed him to set it up for VRBO and Airbnb. Kind of dishonest if you ask me. The large numbers seems doable with the available software for booking, cleaning, managing, and supply gathering. Later on I found that this Dave fellow was really just preaching the good word of Renatus. It’s a MLM scheme of educational videos to do what Bigger Pockets already does for free. For the low cost of 25k, it could have been mine. Thanks again for the feedback. It was very helpful and it answered all of my curiosities about it. Cheers!