STR in Atlanta metro area

[Ceaneh Alexis]

Anyone doing STR is surrounding suburbs of ATL? What areas are ideal? I looking at a duplex in Stone Mountain and would like to use one unit as a STR.

Is this a good idea? Anyone has experience with this strategy for a multi family unit?

[Jefferson Brown]

Hi Ceaneh!

We don't invest in Atlanta but we do invest remotely (we have 8 in Florida, but we live in Utah).  I would recommend using Pricelabs market dashboards to pull data for the area you are looking at.  That will tell you what kind of revenue you can expect to achieve based on the size of home you are looking to buy.

To your question about multi-family units I do believe this presents an advantage to you for two reasons:

1) You can "nest" your listings - this means that you can list each property individually AND create a listing for all of them together.  You can charge a premium for properties that have more bedrooms because they are in shorter supply.

2) You get a higher valuation - When you go to sell a multi-family unit, the bank (and the appraiser) is more likely to consider the rental income of the property in the overall valuation.  With a vacation rental, you could significantly increase the value of the property by renting it short term.

Hope that helps!