Moving Back Home - Primary Residence Short Term Rental?

[Kyle McGrath]

My wife and I are wanting to move back to our hometown in Cincinnati, OH.

We currently own our home in Jacksonville, FL and want to keep it as a long term investment.

We are planning on either AirBnB or listing as a medium term rental. We'd like to travel back to Florida during the winter time and stay in the house.

Has anybody done a medium term rental or AirBnb with their primary residence?

What steps or advice would you give to someone in my situation?

Thanks for all your help.

[Ron Brady]

We did. Decided in Aug 2020 to rent our primary out as a MTR in Dec 2020 and move overseas. 3 pieces of advice:

1. Since our timeline was short, we decided to purchase a coaching course on MTRs from @Al Williamson rather than learn-as-we go. Smartest move we made--the return was well-worth the cost of the course.
   
2. We left more in the house in locked storage rooms than we should have. We thought we needed all that stuff and now a) cannot remember what we have there and b) we don't miss any of it. But now we have to get there and get rid of it all at some point.
   
3. Our MTRs, now 3 of our 7 properties (with one more coming on line in 2023) are part of a larger diversified portfolio (the other part being long term rent-by-rooms). The two different types of rentals have different rental timelines, vacancy rates, rent amounts, property appreciation expectations, serve different types of residents, etc. and thus we feel comfortable about the entire portfolio regardless of overall economic conditions. Absent the diversification, we recommend having high reserves to weather any challenging times.

Best wishes.