Input needed - Big Bear vs Lake Arrowhead for STR

[Susan Snodgrass]

Hello!

First-time investor here, in need of some advice from the BP experts!

My husband and I are very interested in buying a vacation rental property in either Big Bear or Lake Arrowhead, CA. We live in Orange County, and would like to rent it out most of the time, but would love to stay in it a few times a year.

I have browsed the forums, and seen some older posts on this topic, but would love to hear from people with some more recent experience.

I know that Big Bear tends to be more popular, and there is more to do there, but it also seems like a very saturated market with vacation rentals, so competition would be very high there.

Airdna actually ranks Lake Arrowhead as having a bit higher rental demand than Big Bear, but I’m worried about its smaller size and fewer activities, and the lake being private.

Does anyone have any recent experience in either/both of these areas? Does anyone know how accurate the data on Airdna or Mashvisor is for those two areas? The annual revenue and average daily rates seem high and I’m wondering if the numbers are inflated?

Thank you!!

[Christina Hall]

@Lauren Krainski strategically it's difficult to manage property in multiple markets. Both markets are saturated so it's a coin toss which is the better buy. However it takes a ton of effort to get these properties up and running-  we just finished the desert and it was a 6 month reno, and we are still waiting on items like a garage door. Supply chain and labor problems aren't going anywhere for a while. So unless the property is turn key we are basically starting new each time we enter a new market- meaning finding all new contractors, cleaning crew, handymen, learning the demographic of the renters, etc. We'd de-risk our Investment considerably if we concentrated on a single market.