Lake House Vacation Rental Market Analysis (NW Wisconsin)

[Daniel LaSota]

Hello BP Community!

I have recently stumbled upon the opportunity to purchase my grandparents lake house in Wisconsin. Given the financial situation, this isn’t necessarily a going to be a good deal on paper given some my grandparents financial needs. I know going into the deal that I will likely be at a ‘financial loss’ the first year of so. I have vacationed at this cabin every year of my life (25 years) and it comes with a plethora of memories that I would like to continue passing down to my family. So I am willing to absorb a little bit of a loss.

That being said, the property is 2 hours from Minneapolis and 1.5 hours from Eau Claire Wisconsin. It pretty secluded so I am curious what the best way is to evaluate the market for AirBnBs and VRBOs? There are not as many comps available as a traditional AirBnB. However, I know from experience that folks from Minneapolis will make the commute to this beautiful glacier-made lake that the lake house is on.

Does anyone have experience in renting out vacation rentals in more secluded markets? How have you evaluated your market? My father has a cabin an hour from Madison, WI and has been profitable, but I am not sure how profitable this will be given the location.

I will be looking to reach out other AirBnB’ers in the market as well as realtors, but I always love to hear the insight and wisdom from this community!!!

Thank you!

[Keith Schulz]

I recently bought a house between Tomahawk and Minocqua as a vacation rental. It is fully booked from June to the second week of September (only one week reserved for myself), and I will easily turn a solid profit in my first year. 

I'm hearing from others inquiring about the property that they can't find available rentals in northern Wisconsin. I think part of this is people are wanting to do driving isolated vacations rather than flying to busy destinations. Based on this I think the next 1-2 years is probably going to be strong for vacation markets like this.

Your best source of analysis is looking at the other VRBO and Airbnb rates and availability calenders in your area.