Purpose Build STR Duplex

[Justin Tahilramani]

Hello BP Members,

I'm starting a new project and I wanted to take a moment to share it with the community. Please feel free to ask questions and make suggestions. I hope that this post will help others that are contemplating a similar project.

My wife and I own about 40 acres of land in North Carolina. We purchased the land from a local bank in an REO deal. That was about two years ago. Since then we have built our primary residence and spent a lot of time and energy improving the property. We designed our primary residence in a way that would allow both in-laws to visit and have their own living areas. One area is on the 2nd floor of our residence and the other is above a detached garage. The majority of the time the two spaces were unoccupied (unless we had family or friends over). I decided that I wanted to better utilize the space - so I posted both units on AirBnB and Homeaway. Keep in mind that we dont live in a tourist destination - not even close. We are in a military community - about 30 minutes south of Raleigh, NC. The response we got was overwhelming. We have been booked solid for months - mostly family visiting Soldiers, contractors working on base and traveling nurses. One unit brings in about $1200/month and the other unit brings in about $1500/month.

It didnt take long for my wife and I to realize that we had discovered something really unique. We both have experience in buy and hold as well as "normal" SFR rentals, but STRs were completely new territory. We try and focus on guests that have temporary jobs in the area. We rarely accept bookings that are less than two weeks and many are 3-6 months. This works out well for my wife and I because we both have full time jobs.

We have decided to purpose build a STR duplex on the front portion of our property. Each side will be 1bd/1ba (approx 700 sq ft/side). It's definitely more expensive to purpose build, but being able to build a property within walking distance of our PR is ideal (to us at least). It allows us to easily manage daily operations and keep an eye on our investment. Additionally, our land isn't in an HOA is not subject to restrictive covenants.

Based on our experience over the last year, we should be able to maintain rents at $1300 - $1500 per side. The project is scheduled to begin next month and should be completed around August. 

I attached a layout - the exterior still needs some tweaking - it's a little bland as-is. I am happy to answer any questions that you have and would appreciate any feedback from the community. I plan on keeping this updated as the build progresses.

- Justin

[Shannon R.]

I have the same thought of building a duplex and using both sides for short term rentals.  Seems like it could be a great money maker in my location which is a suburb of Seattle.  Possibly I would live on one side eventually.  I look forward to hearing about your progress!  One thing that I am seeing a lot of in my area is a duplex with a one car garage for each side, but the garages are in the middle of the duplex, with the living areas on each end.  That seems genius to me, because then you would not ever hear your neighbor through the walls.  

For the RV hookup rental - in my area tiny houses are a huge new trend and there is a serious lack of good places for people to park them.  Many people park them in a family or friend's back yard, but then if they are rented out then the authorities find out, and some people have gotten into legal trouble.  They are classified as RV's and are illegal to live in because of their small square footage except in a few specific situations like you are farming the land, or building a house, or caring for a sick relative.  The only legal way in my state at the moment to rent out hookups is to classify your property as an RV park.  So I think that would apply in your case as well if you are offering an RV hookup for rent, but if you can find a way to do it legally you might want to tap into the tiny home movement as well.