Best Entry Strategy for Arbitrage Acquisition? (From your Birmingham Realtor &MLO)

[Alexander Walker]

I have 2 partners and a list of 20 potential properties for the Royal Oak, MI, & Birmingham, MI markets.

Michigan AirBnb rentals have typically longer stays and are usually more used for visiting family or exploring job opportunities than destination tourist attractions. That said, Royal Oak has quite the nightlife reputation, and the crowd age ranges from 21-35, generally speaking. Many of these socialites take ubers to their homes, their friends, or their rentals late at night. There is also more going on at night as far as dancing and clubbing than anywhere else outside of Detroit in SE Michigan.

Birmingham is more laid back, substantially higher income, more influential, and the housing rental rates reflect that. The people visiting will have a different ("higher") bar for what they are looking for in a AirBnb or STR.

This will be my first arbitrage acquisition, I have 2 partners willing to go in on the property with me, and we have covered what we feel is most of our bases in terms of, code locks, cleaning crew supply closet, amenities, start up budgets, furnishing costs, cleaning fees, turnover scheduling, automations =, and gifts to make the hospitality on point with those superhosts earning 5 star reviews without needing to ask.

My questions are simply for our forum of beautiful real estate minds on here:

Do we go for the higher priced home in a more affluent area, or keep our budgets lower & try to knock it out of the park in the higher traffic, lower income area of Royal Oak?

All advice will be welcomed and considered.

Regards, Xander (NMLS: 2046976, MLS: 6501416922)

[Michael Baum]

Hey @Alexander Walker, first thing I would do is a search on arbitrage on the forums. There is a lot of info on the topic.

Most of us don't really like it much. It isn't investing but a job.

Anyways, I can't really advise much. The Royal Oak area will bring partiers which will make things very difficult for the owners as they get complaints from other residents.

The affluent area sounds nice, but those folks are even more vocal about issues so vetting the guests will be the number one priority.

You have 20 properties where the owners are willing to allow you to arbitrage the units?