House-hacking through Airbnb during a Pandemic!

[Ron Trinh]

Investment Info:

Single-family residence in Colorado Springs.

Purchase price: $400,000
Cash invested: $25,000

The property is a SFR with a walk-out basement that we Airbnb to allow us to live for free!

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

My wife and I wanted to get into real estate investing and were living in San Diego, CA where buying a SFR would make us house-poor as properties with an ADU (accessory dwelling unit/granny flat) were incredibly difficult to find and expensive.

Therefore we researched other out-of-state markets and decided to visit Colorado Springs, CO. We fell in love with the area and immediately set out to find a property we could move into and house-hack.

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

We partnered with an agent we found on BP, Erin Spradlin, who helped show us properties. We found our property by checking the realtor.com app upon waking up one morning during our visit to Colorado Springs. We had just lost an offer on a previous house and this one had just been posted. We immediately contacted Erin to set up a meeting (this was during COVID lockdowns with no open houses) and arranged to see it that day. Loved it, offered asking which got accepted, and the rest is history.

How did you finance this deal?

Conventional 30 year fixed loan with 5% down

How did you add value to the deal?

The property had a finished basement with a walk-out that we could use as a separate entrance for AirBnB guests. Therefore we spent the next 6 months furnishing the unit to make it a comfortable, pet-friendly AirBnB unit. When we mean pet-friendly, we mean we make it very convenient to stay with pets and believe it to be one of the main reasons our guests book with us.

What was the outcome?

The outcome is now we get to live in a really nice house for free and can use the income we generate for our pursuit of financial freedom.

Lessons learned? Challenges?

One of the hardest parts about setting up our AirBnB was furniture. We had a specific aesthetic we were looking for and a lot of the big-box furniture stores were out of stock of almost everything due to the supply chain interruptions from COVID. As a result, I turned to building a lot of the furniture myself (dining table, night stands, coffee table, and console table for kitchenette) using tools and wood from Home Depot.

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

Yes - Erin Spradlin. She is an amazing resource and a real estate investor friendly agent we found on Bigger Pockets.