Low investment properties-future of airbnb?

[Dev Paul]

Hope everyone is keeping safe during these bizarre times. Before covid *****how started and took over our lives, I was on the verge of buying a vacation rental in Florida Panhandle by flying down in March end and finalizing a property. At first, like many of us, I thought it will be over by summer and i might be able to go ahead with my plans. But then the wait for the end of pandemic started which still hasnt ended. In all this i had to take this decision of letting go of my plans as common sense suggested that with this economy and fear created by virus, people wont be traveling much. So buying a 500k+ property didnt make sense.

Now with beginning of the end of pandemic in sight, i had again started to analyze the market and it seems people are traveling again and especially by car to nearby places, beaches etc. Looking at the trends, it seems buying a property in some semi hot areas rather than usual hot/popular places might be a better strategy in today's times, considering less spending power of people. So a 200-300/night for a whole house near some beach in texas or South Carolina will have more takers than 1000/night in palm springs, california.

Not sure if you guys agree with this, but just in case which states/areas/towns you may suggest where one can get a decent or semi decent property (full home rather than condo) for less than 250k and is reasonably popular among tourists and can get 250-350/night?

Thanks!

[John Underwood]

Dev,

I think if you can find a place for half what you were going to originally spend it might be a safer investment. The 500k place will likely be bigger and sleep more people.

As you said a beach house that people can drive to will always be popular and people have been traveling by car to go on vacation.

The Carolinas have some nice beaches.