Doing the Work to See If Galveston Makes Sense

[Marisa Lerario Dudiak]

Newbie doing the research to see if investing in a STR in Galveston, TX makes sense for soon to be retirees! Hard sell for hubby! Would be primarily in the Dallas area, so need resources to manage when not in town!!

[Kelsey Ardoin]

@Marisa Lerario Dudiak, I specialize in STR's in the Galveston/Crystal Beach market. Both are good locations, with it being less than 2 hours from Houston, which is the 4th largest city in the US. Most of my clients tend to buy in Crystal Beach due to combination of being priced out of Galveston for beachside property and also assessing the bang for their buck. You can get a beachside furnished, 2012 3/2 in Crystal Beach for $500k, whereas in Galveston you're looking at closer to $550k for a 3/2 that's across the highway from the beach and a lot of times that's for a much older house (80's, 90's 00's).

I have STRs in Crystal Beach and in the Smokies. There are going to be risks anytime you own a house, and in a vacation market that's especially true as that typically means you're a little closer to Mother Nature. In the Smokies, there are wildfires. You need to plan for the worst and hope for the best. For us, that means being adequately insured and having rental replacement insurance in place. 

I did see a comment above that referred to flooding in the ground floor of a structure. There are some older structures that were constructed according to previous guidelines and have been grandfathered into flood zones that allow the presence of and insurability of ground floor structures. The current base flood level elevation is 14 ft. That means if you're buying a house built 2008 or later for sure, the lowest horizontal crossmember is 14 feet above sea level (elevation of land + elevation provided by pilings). So please know that most recent construction beach houses do not having living space on the ground floor.