Jersey shore- short term rentals

[Sunny A.]

Hello Everyone, 

Are there members here who own/operate Short Term Rentals in Jersey shore?

How has you experience been so far? and do you get any occupancy during winter months? 

[Joe C.]

Hi there Sunny, I had a condo in Wildwood Crest that was exclusively a rental with no personal use for 10 years that I just sold to 1031 into a home in Florida. I did everything myself except cleaning.

Anybody can rent any decent place at the Jersey shore from the last week of June until 1 week prior to Labor Day, plus Memorial Day weekend. When school is out there is unending demand. May/June and September are difficult but not impossible to rent. It depends on what events are happening in the community at that time. Since the Wildwoods are big on post-season events for example it is a no-brainer to do weekends until almost the end of September.

To really outperform you need to turn those offseason weekends into weeks. When I found older couples without kids that would rent a week from me offseason I would aggressively approach them to return year after year and slowly built up solid rentals until the end of September.

Traditionally I have never had an offseason rental and was OK with that. You need the home to be ready at a moment's notice so you can't turn off the heat or cable/internet for the winter, your cleaners are likely to be in Florida, our condo building would be locked up, etc. A SFH somewhere like LBI might do better in that regard but would be extremely pricey.

The condo was a 3br/2ba fully paid off and after all expenses except depreciation made me $13k per year. Expenses are extremely high in NJ. While I had some price appreciation it just wasn't enough to be worth it for me since I was doing all the work. Being a condo I had to worry about the rest of the building not liking renters, to the point where I had to be the president of the HOA just to protect my investment. The Jersey shore has many retired 2nd home owners and/or teachers that want to use their place all summer and don't take kindly to those evil renters in their building. So be aware of that if looking at multifamily.

Good luck!