Blowing Rock / Boone vacation rental investments

[Julie Pedraza]

Has anyone invested in any vacation rentals in the Boone / Blowing Rock area?  If so, what kind of property have you invested in (condo, cabin, house, etc.) and have you found it to be a good investment?  And have you been able to easily rent it out for most weeks of the year?

We are in the beginning stages of considering an investment there, but interested to hear from others' experiences there.  Thanks!

[Caroline Hardin]

@Ryan Warrenburg I'm in Boone too! I'd love to hear what your local experience has been like in the investment game. 

[Ryan Warrenburg]

I don't have any investment experience yet - outside of being a homeowner and going through the renovation process, but certainly looking to get into it!

[Terri Sawyer]

@Adam Payne and others now that Covid is going on, have you noticed a change in your occupancy this year? I’m looking to purchase up there as my first investment but all the prices of current listings are outrageous and none of the numbers so far make sense.

[Keith N.]

@Adam Payne

How has this been going in the last month since your post?

[Adam Payne]

Hey guys. Sorry for the late response; life has been busy lately. 

@Keith N. @Terri Sawyer 

Watauga county, where our cabin is, actually banned short term rentals for a couple of months. That makes our year look pretty bad compared to last year. However, things opened back up roughly a month ago. August is our best month on record, and September has 0 open nights. 0...that's 100% occupancy. We can't do any better than that. Keep in mind, though, that we are AirBnB superhosts, our cabin has one of the lowest nightly rentals in the area, and we allow 1 night stays. Some of those things are unpopular, but it is working for us at the moment. 

As for buying... I am a home inspector who works along the 321 corridor from Hickory to Boone (and a little beyond...). The market is really weird right now. Agents are consistently telling me that inventory is low. When things come on the market that are priced fairly, they are going withing 24 hours (for the most part). This is a seller's market right now. I'm not suggesting not to buy, just pointing that out. It seems to me that creativity in buying would be key right now. 

A guideline that I saw around the time we bought was to evaluate the property as a long term rental. If the numbers work for that, it will likely work for STR. The longer we do it, the more that makes sense.

[Terri Sawyer]

Thank you @Adam Payne! No worries about late response. I'm not in a hurry since, like you said, it's a sellers market. I connected with an agent up there and she has sent me a few. I had come to that conclusion over the weekend about the numbers having to work out for both LTR and STR for an investment there to even remotely make sense. I think I'm going to stick with trying to find something local-ish to the Charlotte market by attempting to find an off-market deal. And keep my eyes open to the high country for the future. Trying to wrap my head around investing in this crazy market! Hoping your coming months will prove just as good as this August and September are turning out to be! Everyone must have cabin-fever ;-P

[Kristy Reilly]

@Adam Payne how are property taxes up there? We would love to buy a cabin near Blowing Rock, but we're concerned about the cost of taxes. Plus, I'm sure the POA is very expensive in BR. We live in Knoxville, and our property taxes are dirt cheap, so we're also considering purchasing a cabin in the Smokey Mountains. We just don't love the crazy amount of tourists so we're not sure we would use it a ton ourselves (which is very important to us).

[Adam Payne]

@Kristy Reilly our cabin is not within city limits, and the county's property taxes aren't all that bad...at least not by my standards. I have no idea what Knoxville taxes are like, so my comparison might be different. If you don't like tourists, though, don't look at Blowing Rock. We never use our cabin ourselves. September is literally 100% booked...no open nights. But we bought ours as an investment and not to use ourselves. So that is a good thing for us. Just something to think about.

[Cheryl Moore]

@Kevin B. I eventually want to buy cabins and rent so I am interested in how this plays out. Please post information Thanks

[Keith Dowdy]

Hi Cheryl and all,

The cabins my wife and I own in West Jefferson and Beech Mountain are renting like crazy right now. Yeah, we had the ban from late March to late May. But this year ultimately will be the highest gross rentals since we started doing str's. Between the two houses, we're expecting between $90,000 and $100,000 in gross rentals. Our total expenses for the year- 60,000. 

We're showing houses to a client this week and will likely sell our house in WJ in order to buy another two houses in Beech. We'll be making a $100,000 profit after 7 years. We've been selling a lot of houses in the areas for several months now. 

If anyone has any questions wants to talk, please let me know.

Keith

[Evan W.]

@Keith Dowdy 

That is so awesome! Congratulations. I love seeing other people succeed in the STR space.

I'm planning on making my first land purchase in Western NC for an outdoor retreat - as the market slows down this winter. Banner Elk area seems to be too pricey for me... I've been considering the Linville/Jonas Ridge area as I LOVE the Gorge, and figured it is still close enough to Sugar Mountain, Grandfather, etc. to get some attention. Curious on your thoughts.

I'd love to share some of our experiences in STR, and learn how you got started in this area!

That goes for anyone else following this thread as well! Thank you for the awesome content.

[Keith Dowdy]

Hi Evan,

Yeah, I think Linville is a great location. Close to Grandfather Mountains, Linville Gorge, and Linville Caverns. And still close enough to summer and ski season activities in Beech Mountain and Boone. 

If you'd like to have a  phone conversation about this, let me know. My wife and I have been helping people learn more about owning vacation rentals in the Mountain areas around Boone for several years now. 

I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Keith

[Mike Altieri]

We own two properties on Beech Mtn, and both are short term rentals that do very well. This summer was surprisingly strong, but fall/winter is the real season and always does well. We stay at pretty much 85% occupancy year round.

[Keith Dowdy]

My wife and I have a house in West Jefferson, which we've been renting on Airbnb for seven years. We also have a house on Beech Mountain which we have rented for the last two years. We took in approximately $65k in gross rents this year on the Beech Mountain house alone. We're taking in about 35k for the West Jefferson house. We believe we'll net about 20k between the two houses. My wife is a real estate agent and has created a nice niche for herself helping BiggerPockets friends find STRs in the mountain areas around Boone. Let me know if you'd like to talk further about this. 

Keith