All Forum Posts by: Alicia C.

Hey Courtney - I also have a rental in Calera.  I would recommend the renter paying you the full market rent each month and then you can pay him/her in a separate transaction for any work that they do.  I think this makes everything cleaner for taxes, documenting historic rental payments, and legal issues that may arise due to the barter, etc.  

We own a condo in Gulf Shores and a beach cottage in Gulfport. Both are really different markets. The entry price point in Gulfport is much lower than Gulf Shores, but with that is lower rental income. We also pay an HOA in Gulf Shores that eats into our profit a bit, whereas our cottage in Gulfport is stand-alone in a neighborhood with no HOAs. I think the visiting clientele is also completely different in both places. It's just a matter of what you are looking for and what your price point is. Good luck!

Hey Ryan. We own a STR in Gulf Shores. We use Vacasa and we love it. When we purchased the condo it was being managed by Brett Robinson. I do not recommend using BR. We switched to Vacasa and have had a great experience. Their dynamic pricing has benefitted us tremendously. We live about 4 hours away and have very busy W2 jobs, so managing ourselves is really not an option for us.

@Ryan Dostart I'm also using Evernest and not loving them so far... in my case they are killing me with maintenance costs.  What about you?

There are some parts of Hinds County that are fine.  I wouldn't rule it in or out as a whole.  It varies greatly depending on the communities within Hinds.  I believe @Susan Maneck invests in Hinds county and can probably tell you more about it than I can.

I live in a suburb of Jackson.  I would not invest in the city of Jackson.  Like Anthony, I recommend looking in some of the suburbs like Ridgeland, Byram and Clinton.  Also, north Mississippi is viable as well (Hernando, Tupelo area, etc.). 

Hey Matt. We have one STR in Gulf Shores. Feel free to PM me.

@Conor Moran Did you ever settle on a property manager in Birmingham?  I'm also looking into Evernest.  

Prescott!  I heard you on the podcast and I also follow you in IG.  You are inspiring!  

We have a short term rental on the coast of Alabama so perhaps I can help a little bit.  We also use ours periodically throughout the year and rent it when we are not using it.  Here are some things that come to mind, in no particular order:

• We choose not to stay in our condo during the high season because that's when the money is made.  We also don't stay there Dec - Feb because that's snowbird season. 
• Keep in mind you have an HOA to pay as well - that will impact your cash flow.
• Mother Nature is a beast. Hurricane Sally shut our complex down (and many others). We have not been able to rent our condo since mid September. Our re-open date is May 15, so that's 8 months of paying out of pocket. Insurance helped a little, but the majority of the cost was ours. In addition to lost rental revenue, we had to pay our HOA an assessment of several thousand dollars. Some complexes had to pay upwards of $10k in assessments.
• We use a property management company that manages our rentals.  They charge 20% which is pretty typical for the area.  We are just too busy at this point in our lives to do it ourselves.  

I don't want to discourage you but those are just some things you may not have considered.  We absolutely love it on the gulf coast and we are happy with our investment but sometimes we entertain the thought of selling it for something that would cash flow a little better.