Needing Advice on a Property | Which Route is Best

[Joey Saah]

Hello,

  I have a property on the Eastern shore of Maryland in a resort town. The house is a 5 bedroom, 4 full baths, large deck, hot tub, pool and a 1,200 sf heated garage with water. I have it rented out now to a family but it still doesn't cover the mortgage unfortunately. I am also in the process of trying to either get a loan modification or a refinance, however, my debt to income is too high for a refinance and I am being told for a modification the house must be in foreclosure or considered a hardship. I would like to rent out each room separately or possibly add a small kitchen to one side of the house and make it a duplex. I have a large room that could be converted into a kitchen / living room which if I split the house in half with a wall or doors, would give me a large duplex with 3 bedrooms 2 baths, kitchen, dining room and living room on one side and the other would be the exact same thing minus one bedroom. I've also toyed around with the idea of turning the large room into a studio apartment considering it already has a separate entrance and that is the room I was planning on adding the second kitchen to anyway. My last idea is to use AirBnB as I've seen a lot of positive feedback on here and other places. I also have a friend that uses it with here house only a few miles from mine. The problem is that I would like to stay in Florida and running AirBnB seems like a full time job although the return seems to be great and the prices are quite high for other places in my area. The thought of being able to rent out 4 or 5 rooms everyday plus have a complete studio apartment to rent as well, or live in, seems pretty exciting. Any Feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Joey

[Maxwell Lee]

We just recently started airbnbing one of our properties in Jax and I've been completely SHOCKED by the demand. We crushed it with airbnb for awhile in DC (until the condo association sent a cease and desist) but that's DC. Jax is not a tourist destination. On top of that, I had considered airbnb for my own private residence in a very popular neighborhood in Jax and the demand seemed very weak based on the pricing and number of reviews. I figured traditional rentals would always be the way to go. 

Well, it took a fix and flip that wasn't selling at the price we want (and had gotten broken into once) for us to look into STR to get us through the slow winter months and add a layer of protection to a vacant home. So we decided to explore airbnb in this neighborhood and suddenly realized there were 30 units listed in this half sq mile area. And many had been reviewed more than once a week. Right there under my nose, in a neighborhood we work and invest in regularly, I had no idea STRs could be such a viable option. This was a last resort and currently is a trial run, but may be something I consider for future as the returns will likely beat out traditional rentals.

And thanks to @James Carlson and @Nicole Jones for further insight into this avenue.