Buy & Hold | August 2019 - March 2020

[Ryan Copeland]

Investment Info:

Townhouse buy & hold investment.

Cash invested: $44,000

I renovated my rental property to become an Airbnb. It was my first major undertaking and I learned a LOT. The outcome was great, but going forward I need to decrease my carrying costs and find other cost effective ways to make impactful improvements.

COVID-19 drastically impacted the STR rental market where my property is located. On July 1, 2020 I leased this unit out as a 6-month STR (fully furnished). This was always my exit strategy if Airbnb wasn't working.

$2200 monthly rent
$1000 operating expenses
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$1200 net operating income

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

I did a feasibility study using AirDNA for Airbnb where my property was located. The numbers came back highly favorable. I figured I could make good income and still use the property when we go visit. Also, the Atlanta Braves stadium is only 5 miles away.

How did you finance this deal?

I used cash to renovate the property. I also did a mortgage recast of $10,000 to bring my monthly mortgage payment down from $900 to $629 to help minimize risk.

How did you add value to the deal?

Fully renovated the interior.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

The biggest lesson learned is to have all of your renovation design ideas thought out prior to starting construction. This caused some delays in my project.

The challenges were:
1) finding a contractor
2) selecting materials
3) decor design

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

I didn't work with any real estate professionals. If I had known about BiggerPockets before I started the project, I'm sure I would've done a lot of things differently.