Thoughts on jumping in to STRs?

[Tommy Cangelosi]

I'm thinking about purchasing a lake house in North Georgia as a short term rental....I want to diversify some and have 8 SFRs and a duplex right now. My mom rents out her beach condo and it's booming right now. Any advice with the current state of the market with STR vacation homes? Good or bad time for entry? Any info would be helpful. TIA!

[Jason Muth]

@Tommy Cangelosi - I own / manage two plus work full-time. That’s likely my limit. Think about a property manager if you want to have a fleet of properties, but I would recommend managing the first one yourself if possible, even so much as to doing the cleaning and turns a few times just to get a rhythm and understanding of what goes into that process.

Study rates in your market, undercut others early on in order to get some bookings and positive reviews. Be open and communicative with guests during booking, and grateful and polite afterward. Always represent your properties honestly. You need to build reviews and reputation, and bad reviews will severely hurt you.

If the inquiry fees like spam, it probably is. I rarely get spam on Airbnb, but often do on VRBO.

Consider tenant quality. You want to build reviews, so price accordingly to start. But you will eventually find that price threshold where not renting to someone for a super low rate is a better choice than taking a cheap booking and risk having problem tenants.

Good luck!