Comparing two lake houses

[Jared Luhman]

I'm curious to hear people's thoughts. I would like to get into a lake house in northern Minnesota as a vacation rental and I'm currently looking at two options that are both about the same price and I want to know which people think would have the best income potential.

Option 1:

$310,000 for a 750 square foot 2 bedroom 1 bath on .3 acres right on a 100,000+acre lake. It needs updating and I have roughly $25,000 to spend which would make it very nice and updated. I could potentially put a small game room/arcade in one area of this house.

Option 2: $310,000 for a 1500 square foot 3 bedroom 2 bath on 1.3 acres on a 50 acre lake about 5 miles from the same big lake option 1 is on. So a much smaller lake but would be good for swimming/kayaking/paddle boarding. It has an attached garage plus a small separate garage/shop. This option is already nicely updated and my thoughts were to use the $25,000 to install a putting green in the yard and turn one of the garages into a nice arcade/game room and also install a hot tub and possibly some other nice amenities

I'm also open to hearing people tell me I shouldn't try either. But looking forward to hearing the thoughts.

[Sarah Kensinger]

Besides what was already mentioned, which property could you add the most value to? Of course, you don't want to put in more money than you can later make from the property, but it's usually a good idea to buy a place where you can add value.