Newbie Investor - STR in the Poconos

[Mike Dolan]

Hi BP - I'm a 26 year old newbie investor looking to purchase my first STR property in the Poconos. More specifically looking at Lake Harmony Estates. Been doing a lot of research online and doing my own analysis, but wanted to hear from people who have experience in the area. My criteria is 3-4BR, 2BA less than $550K. Planning on doing a 10% vacation loan and splitting it 50/50 with my father.

In order to break even, we’ll need to have it booked about 50% of the time. Looking on AirDNA and other websites, and seeing the average occupancy for the area is about 60% for properties in my criteria. Is this a reasonable occupancy rate? Was also looking through old forums, and saw people mentioning you’d be lucky to get 20-25% occupancy, and wanted to see if this has changed?

Please let me know what your experience has been and if there are any other areas I should be looking at. Any advice is greatly appreciated!