Historic Church turned Airbnb

[Brook Rieman]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $24,000
Cash invested: $57,000

Contributors:
Corey Rieman

We purchased this abandoned church in 2012 and initially used the one-room space as a photography studio. In 2017 we renovated the space to add indoor plumbing with a bathroom and kitchen as a studio style apartment which we rent on Airbnb. It has been extremely popular and has been featured in publications such as Condé Nast Traveler and Indianapolis Monthly. It was an outside-of-the-box idea for investment property but it has been great for us.

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

We didn’t start out thinking of running a vacation rental but when my photography studio was empty in the evenings, I started renting nights on Airbnb. That started the ball rolling and eventually after renovating the rental became more profitable than the photo biz.

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

The place was for sale for a very long time. I don’t think people could see the potential in such an odd, wide open space. We threw out a VERY lowball offer. They had originally been asking 79k but we got it for 24K cash.

How did you finance this deal?

Cash.

How did you add value to the deal?

See renovations in the description.

What was the outcome?

Good monthly cash flow and we live that we are preserving a historic landmark of the county.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

Think outside of the box!

[Brook Rieman]