Our First Airbnb, the journey has begun

[Jonathan Nachtsheim]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $490,000
Cash invested: $70,000

Airbnb in Cape Coral Florida

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Visiting Cape Coral multiple time staying in various short term rental places. We wanted one for ourselves.

How did you finance this deal?

Second Home Mortgage

How did you add value to the deal?

We added landscaping ourselves, furnished the house ourselves

What was the outcome?

We're two months in during the slow season and just about broke even last month. :)

Lessons learned? Challenges?

How to get the place rented during the middle of the week.

[Jonathan Nachtsheim]

The house is about 20 minutes from the beach, we have a pool and the house was recently renovated, all we had to do was furnish and stage.  Here is the listing on Airbnb:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/6...

We self manage the house from DC, and I hope to buy one house a year moving forward.  The incentive is to use bonus depreciation and material participation to save money on our taxes.  

I spent 3 months in Cape Coral setting it up and finding a good housekeeper, who basically is the caretaker of the house for us.  He recharges our security cameras, waters our outside plants, fills our water softener with salt and keeps the house ready for the next guest.  We also have a pool guy, and landscapers who cut the lawn.  That's basically it.  We spend maybe an hour or two a day managing it, so it's normally a low intensity side hustle.  We're still learning, but it's been a fun experience so far.

The summer is the slow season in Florida, so rates will be going up until Winter, so we're hoping we make a profit after the summer.  Fingers crossed! :)