Yet another kissimmee vacation home

[Arthur Neves]

Hi everyone, I am not new to the forum, but I think this is my first time posting.

3 years ago, my wife and I were thinking of buying a property in Kissimmee and started looking. Two years ago, we were also buying some other long time rentals in Atlanta, so at that time we didn't dive all in Florida. 

We now feel is the time to invest in Florida though. The main goal with the property is: 

1. Make cash flow positive renting it for short-term. 

2. Use it two to four times a year.

For the past week, we've been actively looking at townhomes, and our price range is <350k. We found some good ones (5bed/4.5) in Windsor at Westside, and that seems to be a good community that short term renters look for. (from speaking with people and reading reviews online)

If someone here has experience in this area, I would love to hear your thoughts to validate some assumptions we have so far:

1. Our first goal (rent it as short-term to make cash flow positive) is the most important one, we would even drop goal # 2 in years that we are not performing as good as we would expect. Also, we would probably only stay in the house during low seasons.
2. We would not be taking a mortgage, as we have the money invested in ETFs, making ~5% year (that yield number might really not be true depending on the year)
3. We live in Toronto, Canada. So we would definitely look for a Property Management company in there(recommendations wanted), However, we would like to be as hands-on as possible. We are comfortable in doing all the marketing, and posting into multiple channels(airbnb, vrbo, custom website). Also, any remote communication with the guests. However, we will need boots in the ground for things like inspections when guest leave, cleaning, answer call-outs by guests that need immediately or next day assistance. For that, we assume we could find a company that would charge a flat fee for the management and charge extra per callout as well as per cleaning. Is this possible?
4. Given we are putting all money down, there is not much equity to be built. My estimative is that the house would appreciate about 2-3% year (looking at the past 10-year housing prices in Orlando). 
5. With an occupancy of ~80%, and an avg nightly rate of $160 our gross revenue would be ~ $46,592.00.
6. WIth costs including Insurance, property tax(and CDD), HOA, PM (and 5 callouts/year), pool maintenance, pest control, deep cleaning and utilities that should cost about: $17,284.00. (note I am not including cleaning fees, as I expect to charge the guest for it)
7. Making our Net $29,308.00, and 8.37% of the 350k investment. 
8. House expenses are about 2%/year (cost of new appliances, etc).

If all those assumptions hold true to some extent, we would be making ~8-10% year, which is way above an ETF standard investment. Of course, there will be more risk and more work for extra money. 

Any things we missed, any critique on our strategy or in our numbers? Any help appreciated. 

Thanks, community.

[Sid Payne]

I think your numbers look good but I would put 80% occupancy on the high end. I've been working that market pretty hard for several years and I average between 70 and 90 percent but it has taken a lot to get there.

Shoot me a PM with you email address and I can send you some of my resources down there.

Sid