All Forum Posts by: Amelia Casalenuovo

@Lenny Reinstein My fiancé and I live in the Tampa area and are new to investing too so figured I'd share what we've learned so far and you can do what you see fit with the information. When we did our market research, we noticed for STR's, 3 or more bedroom properties performed significantly better than 1-2 properties. This was likely because you could comfortably fit 10 (or sometimes more if you had a 4/3 or 5/3), and it was also advantageous to have a pool, so we took a step back, saved up more and started going after those properties. Most HOA's won't let you do STR, so we had to find properties not in those areas you can find some of these properties in the Seminole or largo area near Clearwater, but they are a little more costly. As some other posters suggested, we went a little out of the city to Brandon which is still only 20 minutes from tampa and slightly closer to Orlando. We found a nice 4bed/2bath that we got for 369.8k with max seller credits (7.3k). Anything we saw on our searches under 330k was either cash/hard money only or needed significant work. Our plan is to get this first property up and running then once we learn the process buy our next property in the largo/Seminole area.

 Hey Todd! Was checking the responses on here so figured I would respond to this as well and let Josh share any additional thoughts. Every county has an interactive map for you to look up the flood zone of a particular property. They base that on the annual risk of flooding and the risk of flooding over a 30 yr mortgage. Flood zone A (which is what this property is in) has an annual risk of flooding around 1% and ~26% over the span of a 30 yr mortgage. Flood insurance is primarily required by lenders so for people who have financed their property and the property structure is in a flood zone. Some people have part of their land in a flood zone but are not required by their lender to purchase flood insurance. Brandon, FL is more inland than Tampa, so while it isn't right on the cost, there are considerations based on surrounding bodies of water and elevation that could put properties in a flood zone. (Ie, this property we are in the inspection contingency period for is in flood zone A but the properties on the other side of the street are not). For people who own a condo, the condo associations carry flood insurance that covers your property and mortgage lenders accept this as coverage, you just have to submit the copy of their coverage to your lender to satisfy that aspect of your mortgage requirements

Appreciate your insight Todd, thank you! We got to the 60k in revenue using the average daily rates/percent occupancy for comparable properties on air DNA. Some comparable properties had 3 bathrooms, others had 2. 60k was the lowest number of all the properties we saw that were similar so that’s what we based our numbers off of. 

Have you seen many investor loans with better rates than 7.5% recently? Just curious because when i was searching I really didn’t find anything better, not sure if there’s something I’m overlooking. My fiancé and I have 20% to put down and both have very good credit scores (~780 and up). 

 I've never heard of that rule of thumb before, thats a really good way to look at it. Total for down payment + closing costs + taxes is ~85k. But yes, 60K was a very conservative estimate (the range on air DNA for comparable properties are grossing 56-90K/yr) and price + rehab we should be right around 400k, maybe a little closer to 405K. Thank you for the additional insight, if for some reason we dont go through with this, I'll for sure keep this in mind for the future!

 Yes, we are working with an agent, and unfortunately it is in a flood zone (I'm guessing its an elevation issue because its not right next to a lake). And yes, taxes NOT copied from zillow, pulled the county tax reports and estimated without homestead and other exemptions + received an updated tax number from the mortgage lender. Appreciate your input!

Hi!

Looking to see other's input on this deal in brandon, FL. The property is in a great location, just 20 min from downtown tampa and just over 1 hr from disney /east orlando. This will be our first investment property! Planning to turn it into a short term rental (air BNB, VRBO) with a backup strategy of short term rental to travel nurses, etc.

Deal details:

Location: Brandon, FL

Price: 365K purchase price, Rehab/Furnish costs: 64 K (putting 20% down, paying our own closing costs). Interest rate 7.5%

Property details: 4 Bed, 2 Bath, fully enclosed pool, 2195 sq ft living area (planning to have at least 14 guests)

Anticipated revenue: 5k/month (this is conservative end)

Total Expenses/month: 3.9k (mortgage + taxes + insurance = 2.8k/month)

Cash on Cash return: 9%

The issue we found on our original numbers vs what is coming back now from the mortgage lender is that the insurance is MUCH higher than anticipated (77/month flood and approx 360/month property). Going to spend the day today calling around seeing if I can get a better rate but wanted to get the forum's perspective because there is a pretty good demand for larger groups/short term renals in this area. The property is in pretty good shape (just needs some TLC plus a full new HVAC system) and that price is well below most other properties in the area and has been sitting on the market for a few months so we were able to negotiate a lower price. I got multiple estimates during the inspection so I'm pretty confident in the rehab costs. Our full inspection contingency period is up on monday, so any comments/thoughts you're willing to share would be much appreciated!

Thanks Dillon! Nothing super concerning on our inspection, also forgot to mention property is not within an HOA. Thanks for your input!

Hi!

Newbie investor here looking to close on what will be my first investment property (short term rental) in the Tampa Florida area. Everything looked great during the inspection but the property has a garage that was converted to a living space / living room. When I look at the permitting history for the property, I see permits were obtained for electrical work and windows, however I do not see that a building permit was obtained at any point in the last 20 years. Are building permits always needed in addition to electrical work/windows?

In florida, you have to submit a request for records from 2004-1989 as they are not available online. The house was built in 1976, so if it was before 1989, It sounds like there might not be a way to verify.

So my questions here are, do you get an architect and/or engineer to come look at it to make sure it is built to code and then apply for an as is permit from there or is there another course of action to take? I guess it could be possible that maybe the garage was not converted (the square footage of the house matches what the property records parcel lookup says on my county website, so it is possible the garage conversion could have been older). Also, the official county property record has the former garage area listed as "BAS" which is the code they use for base area and this matches the rest of the 1st floor of the house. Because it's NOT listed as a garage on the parcel search, does that mean I'm in the clear?

If you are able to provide any insight I would really appreciate it!

Amelia