8 Jamaicans, 2 Britts and one long winter . . .

[Douglas Larson]

In 2005 I bought a home in Park City, UT. I did a solid renovation on the kitchen and changed the flooring throughout. Then I rented the home for 2 years. My loan was an ugly 80/20,, no-doc, negative amortization ARM loan. (Those were the good 'ol days!) Anyway, after 2 years, there was some nice appreciation and it was time to sell before the loan blew up on me. We were in escrow from September til late October and our buyers walked. This was the fall of 2007 and it was starting to stress me out. The house was empty and the mortgage was about $2000 per month (not including principle growth). Selling in the cold months is tough, even in a ski resort town. It was looking like a long, expensive winter.

I heard from an investor friend about the desperate need for housing for ski resort workers. Homes with lots of beds & baths and near the bus line were in big demand. Park City, Utah has 3 ski resorts and staffing those resorts brings huge challenges. Within a week I had agreed with The Canyons Resort (my favorite snowboard spot) to rent my 4 bedroom, 3 bath home, plus den to 10 seasonal employees of the resort. 8 were housekeeping staff hired and flown in from Jamaica. 2 were Britts, hired for the ski school.

The tempting offer was $400 per person, so a monthly rent of $4,000, which translated to a cashflow of over $1500 after all monthly expenses. I was actually very nervous though about what was going to happen to my house! After all my renovations, were these seasonal workers going to party and trash the place!?!. The Jamaican housekeepers were absolutely amazing tenants. They were mature adults with families back in Jamaica and they were experienced housekeepers. They took very good care of the place for 4 months and I was able to sell in the spring for even more money than the contract we had lost in the fall. Oh, and another big bonus was that I also got free snowboarding all season long as a part of the housing contract!

House cost $255K in 2005

We sold for $417 in early 2008

It was a true net of about $95K total, after all renovations, commissions, taxes, insurance and debt service.