All Forum Posts by: Alex Smith

Hello everyone, my father purchased a sfh near the beaches in Florida. Closing is in 30 days, its turn key, ready to be rented as is. At first we were going to use a property management company to handle the rental, but have since started to reconsider handling the management ourselves. It's tricky with us being out of state, so I was hoping to get some insight from those of you that have something similar. This will be a short term rental marketed through vrbo, air bnb, booking.com, and trip advisor (those are what we plan on listing through so far). How do you prevent the calendars on these websites from overlapping bookings?

The most important systems we've realized a need for with managing this ourselves would be a housekeeping/cleaning service that would be able to clean and ready the home for the next guest as well as a local host or someone we can have check in on the home, assist guests if they needed someone in person, check over contractor work, etc. Does anyone have any suggestions for these in Naples Florida? How have you all implemented payment for these services? By use? Monthly?

How about rental contracts? How did you set yours up? Rental Policies such as cancellation, smoking, pets? Any reason not to go with rental insurance instead of a security deposit?

Any suggestions for a reliable/trustworthy general contractor out of Naples Florida?

If there is anyone here running a short term rental out of state I would love to chat with you regarding how you are handling and managing the property. Lots of moving pieces with something like this out of state.

Apologies if this isn't the proper section

Hello everyone,

My Father is looking to purchase a rental property in Southwest Florida, somewhere around Naples and Ft Myers. He is looking to purchase a property to rent with the intention of eventually either moving into that property with in the next 5-10 years or moving into another property in the area. He is approved for 500k for the property and traveling to Florida in 30 days with the intent to buy if he finds the right deal. I have interest in real estate investing as well so I've hopped in the back seat of this venture to see how it all works.

He's looking for a 2-3 bedroom, 2 bath, condo, villa, or sfh. Either something he would slightly rehab to add value or a turn key property. I suggested that an area on the eastern coast may be better for rental income since Miami and the surrounding cities are more tourist oriented but Ft Myers area is more retirement focused. I also brought up that the Covid-19 pandemic would likely mean no rentals to older folks for the rest of this year, and I'm sure would still affect their willingness to travel into next year.

From your experiences, is an area such as this better for a tourist rental where it may only be rented during the busy season and slow for the rest or would he be better of buying a property with the intent of finding a tenant for a longer term?

Any recommended real estate agents or companies in the area you have had a positive experience with? Or individuals on here who are in the area/surrounding areas that could offer advice?

Any other general advice?

I'm going to search through this forum more and hit the books to provide my Father with more helpful info in addition to what you provide, but time is short and he's ready to buy.