All Forum Posts by: Aubri Paredes

@Jordan Garcia 

Awesome post! Thank you for all of that information!

I am currently in the process of buying a home as a house hack with the VA loan. I am trying to minimize the amount of money I come out of pocket. One of those ways was to include the VA funding fee with my purchase price or utilize a first-time homebuyer closing cost grant to cover it. I was also looking into a seller's concession but it is difficult in the area I am in.

I'm not familiar with the St Pete market but with a quick google search, I see the median home price is $319k. How did you manage to pay less than $4k total with your home purchase? 

@Mike Lambert

You may have misread my previous response or maybe I wasn't clear in the information I provided. The individuals are not co-hosting. They take over the property with a long-term rental agreement and in turn, use that same property as an STR. So like you mentioned, the owner gets that guaranteed income no matter how the STR performs (that's their benefit) while you assume the risk.

I was thinking of getting started out that way, and use the profits made from that strategy to purchase an STR later on.

@Eric Garcia

This sounds very interesting, do you recall the name of the podcast?

Mike, thanks for the response. I appreciate all comments as I am trying to learn and am super excited to get in the STR game. Have you seen other people attempt to do rental arbitrage and this was the outcome? Or is your comment just based on your assessment?

The reason I asked about rental arbitrage is because I was introduced to it by many individuals who are already doing it and have been very successful. So when you say something like " rental arbitrage makes no sense in The Dominican Republic" I'm curious, what do you tell those people who are actively doing it and have been successful? Lol.

"Anybody who owns a property that can be rented short-term will never rent it long-term" This might depend on the area we are talking about. I can see this not working in certain areas, but in other areas, people have had a lot of success it seems. 

I have spoken with individuals who have done just this. One example, an individual I was speaking with said this strategy worked particularly well with owners who were not having much success in the STR game because they didn't know how to market their property correctly. Once this individual took over and used rental arbitrage on that same property, he furnished it differently, and marketed it differently, and made more than triple what the owner made. This was in Santo Domingo.

The reason I mentioned I was Dominican is because the individuals I know doing this all live in the DR. I wanted to hear actual experience from someone who is not living in the DR that has tried this strategy. 

@Heba Girgiss

How did you get your traveling medical professionals clientele? Is that something you marketed on a STR site like Airbnb or Vrbo?

Has anyone had any experience with investing in STRs in The Dominican Republic? Specifically with rental arbitrage? I'm looking into getting started and was curious about rental arbitrage while I do my research and my planning. This would mean putting the property that I rent (with the owner's permission of course) on Airbnb or VRBO. 

I'm Dominican,  I was born there and have family there. But I wanted to see if any foreigners have tried this tactic and what their experience was like? 

@Brian Ploszay

I’m new to investing and trying to understand why would he not get all of the money from the tenant that they owe?

So essentially people can live rent free without the obligation of having to pay it back?

@Heba Girgiss

I’m also looking to owner occupy in Newark. Which part of Newark do you own your property in?

@Joe Villeneuve

Thank you for this great advice! Seems like this doesn’t apply to 2-3 unit homes that are turnkey? I’m new as well and at first I was making offers on the numbers that made the most sense. Lately, I switched gears and started making my calculations on offers that would actually “have a chance.”

It seems in this market ( I am located in northern NJ) and the fact that I am looking for move in ready MFH, offers that are asking price or below don’t stand a chance. How can a newbie go about mitigating this?

@Ellis San Jose

Hi, I have heard of some amazing chats on Clubhouse. Do you still have that invite available? I would love to join.