Vacation Rental Investors, how is your property doing this year?

[Greg Moore]

In January, I was just about to move forward with my first Vacation Rental property, but put the brakes on it due to COVID-19. But 9 months in, it seems this sub-sector of REI is doing great— maybe even better than Pre-COVID.

For those of you with AirBnB, VRBO, or any other Vacation Rental properties, I’m keen to hear how your property is performing this year? And if you would be so kind to add one “lesson learned” so that I can do well with my first vacation rental, I’d greatly appreciate it!

[Sofia Sharkey]

@Greg Moore

I have several short term rentals in Kansas City which is different from vacation rental markets as tourism is not big here. March was planned to be our best month ever with calendars full at nice rates. Then COVID happened and we got a wave of cancellations 🦗 crickets. Some of my units were not profitable for the first time ever in March and April. May was ok and then in June we saw a spike in travel. July, August, and September were fantastic months and October is shaping out to be strong as well.

Lesson learned: not to be over leveraged. We were able to stay a float because we don’t pay very high mortgages / rents so even in hard times most of our units were able to ride it out. Here in KC much of our competition went away because they could afford their STRs anymore. Many hosts were desperate to get people in so they lowered the prices drastically (In March I saw beautiful full houses going for $40 a night) then got lots of parties and guests who damaged the properties. Now many of them are dealing with angry neighbors / communities for being the party house as well as trying to recover from the damages.