Vacation/AirBnB home Baltimore City

[Alice Jou]

Hi, 

I'm in downtown Washington, DC and am looking to invest in a second home in Baltimore City - used as a weekend family house (we have 2 small kids, under 3) and to rent out on AirBnb occasionally. We would like to stick to near Penn Station/Amtrak, or close to the hipster/yuppier parts of town, Fells Point/Federal Hill, or by Camden Yards. Budget is about $200k, for a 2 or 3 BR house - and open to doing some small DIY projects on our own or paying for bigger projects, like going lead paint free. 

We would be paying mostly or all cash, so we're not too constrained by cash flow. Our main criteria is being able to get back our cash (after taxes, maintenance, etc) in about 3-5 years if needed. Obviously, we know Baltimore is block by block, so we'd be visiting a lot - and we love the city, so that's not a problem.

The reason for doing this is that we have saved enough cash for a down payment in the DC suburbs - which is enough to buy an entire nice house in Baltimore. We had planned on moving to the suburbs when we had kids, but it turns out we're not feeling cramped yet in our condo, and DC has public preschool. We need to stay in DC for our jobs. So we'd like to stay and build some more equity in our condo for at least 3-5 more years. In the meantime, I'd like to keep our down payment cash parked somewhere other than the bank, but safer than the stock market,.

Any thoughts? Also, would love to network with any Baltimore City real estate investors. 

[Daniel Kauffman]

My wife and I live in Fairfax, Virgina and we plan to make a similar investment soon. If you are still contemplating an Airbnb investment property in Baltimore, we highly recommend contacting Jenna and Matt. We recently visited Baltimore City and met with "Jenna and Matt", who manage a number of Airbnb investment properties in the Baltimore area. This Sunday afternoon they showed us around to a few of their Baltimore properties, many of which are downtown near the Inner Harbor in Fells Point/Federal Hill/Camden Yards. We visited on a Sunday because many guests checkout on Sunday morning, so Sunday afternoon was a great time to visit a few of their properties in one day. Jenna and Matt have been hosting through Airbnb for about 4 years. Jenna and Matt are classified as "Airbnb Superhosts" which is a distinguished title that they have earned through their high response rate, exceptional hospitality, and hundreds of 5-star guest reviews. After meeting with them we much better understand the Baltimore area, and their airbnb business. We were particularly impressed with their professionalism, and the high cash on cash returns that their investors are currently achieving.