Successful first STR, to scale or to slow?

[Dren Gashi]

Two years ago I bought my first property which was my primary residence for 2 years. I was able to completely BURR this property (minus the refinance) and have recently put it up on Airbnb to find that it’s done really well the past 3 months with 300% returns on mortgage, and bookings are staying consistent through the future.

In regards to current financial situations, the Airbnb itself should bring in about 35k of net revenue by next summer. This will be about 3x my down payment for the current STR I own. Here's my question— having not done a refinance on my home (which is valued at about 2x of the purchase price 277k>545k), the rationale I have is that my rates are locked in at 2.875 and the property is cash flowing. It seems like the best option if I wanted to scale this business quicker would be by using a heloc loan to purchase another STR property. Does this thought process make sense?

what’re some other options people in similar situations have explored? New to the forum and hoping to bounce ideas off here, but my main goal in real estate investing is to scale as quick as possible!

[Leslie Anne Morris]

You might consider using the HELOC for the down and leveraging OPM (bank financing) so as not to tap all of your home's equity.