Historic Inn Purchase/Reno Help and Questions

[Deborah Walgren]

Hello all. I have a rare opportunity to purchase a beautiful old historic inn that I've had my eye on for about 15 years that just came on the market. It has sat empty for the last 20 years but the current owners have completely gutted it, have bids from contractors they're willing to share, cost estimates etc. and have had lots of inspections done and so much pre-work with the city and county to figure out what they can and can't do, so a solid plan is already in place. This is located in a tourist lake/ski town with extremely high demand for lodging. 

I can come up with only about a third of the required down payment. I own a high-demand business that I've been planning on selling anyway but that sale will take a minimum of 6 months, so I can't use that for the initial purchase. I don't know how to make this happen but the numbers work well, so I'm looking for creative advice/equity partners/private money/hard money for how to make this happen, and then when my business sells I can pay back the loan and find financing at that point to continue the rehab. This property would have multiple income streams, including as an airbnb, wedding venue, bed and breakfast, corporate retreat. I have a pro forma using very pessimistic occupancy/booking percentages (worst case scenarios) which identify a very nice cash on cash return, and the ARV will (again, pessimistically) be at least double the purchase+rehab costs.

Has anyone out there been involved in something similar or have ideas on how I can move forward with this? I want to buy and hold, running this as a retirement project, with my son managing it. 

Thank you in advance for any ideas :) 

David