All Forum Posts by: Avery Carl

I was going to comment but @Julie McCoy said everything I was going to say...

@Solomon Ganz I made the switch after 10 years in the music business and an MBA with a focus in marketing.  It can definitely be done and you can be successful.  I have found it very easy.  However, on the investment side of your idea, unless you are planning on paying cash for your investments, when you switch from a W2 job to a 1099 job like real estate, lenders usually want to see 2 years of 1099 income, which for your first 2 years of full time real estate work will likely be less than your current income.  

I was able to make it work because the reason I got my license was to avoid having to use an agent for my own transactions.  When I got burnt out on my job and decided to make the switch, I had several short term rental properties and could support myself off that income while getting ramped up as an agent.  My advice would be to tweak your plan to get a couple investments under your belt while you still have that nice W2 income.  Don't let that 15 years go to investment property waste!

I specialize in investing about 30 minutes south of Knoxville in the Smoky Mountain area (Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge) of Tennessee.  I specialize mostly in short term vacation rentals and there is much money to be made in the short term market there.  I have been interested in expanding my long term portfolio as of late (I live in Nashville, and had been looking in this area, where I have 2 LTR's), and after some research found that there is an serious shortage of long term rentals in the Smoky Mountains BECAUSE of all the short term rental traffic.  There is virtually nowhere for the locals to rent.  Not Knoxville, like you asked, but thought I would throw in my two cents since it's nearby.

Hey Nick!

It is a different animal than analyzing a duplex or long term investment property, but once you develop your system and implement it, it's fairly easy.  I would start by checking out all of the airbnb and vrbo listings in your area to see what people are charging and what their occupancy rate is.  I would imagine being an investor from that area you already have a general knowledge of what it will cost you to acquire the property.  Do an analysis on the 2 and be sure to include utilities, cable, internet, and cleaning into your expenses as you will be paying these yourself rather than tenants (minus the cleaning fee, which you can charge out to the renters).  If you want to send me a private message and chat about my experience with short terms on the phone I am super happy to answer all your questions! I am not in the same market as you but there is a lot of transferable knowledge to the short term rental game.

Would LOVE to come to this. Putting in my calendar now

Hey Tim!

I am in Nashville as well, and after our first investment or two we were priced out of this market.  We shifted our focus to short term rentals in the Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge area and were able to scale to 5 in the course of a year.  We have been crushing it.  And since the Smoky Mountain area economy has been relying on the commerce of short term cabin rentals and tourism since the 60's, we feel pretty confident it would be one of the last municipalities to ever crack down on short term renting.  

I have 5:

3 2-bed/2-baths. I pay between $65-$75 per turn (they all have outdoor hot tubs, the $75 property has 2 additional indoor HUGE soaker tubs, so it's extra).

2 1-bed/1-baths that run me $55 a turn (both have outdoor hot tubs)

All turn an average of 2-3 times per week give or take on the busy months

each clean includes: obviously, cleaning (as mentioned in some of the previous posts, does not include deep cleaning tasks such as baseboards), emptying, sanitizing, and refilling of the outdoor hot tub, taking away and washing the used sheets and towels and replacing them with clean ones, taking the trash to the dump, replacing trash bags, toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning the grill and inside of microwave, putting away clean dishes (we ask guests to put all dishes in dishwasher and run it on the way out).

We charge the cost of the cleaning to the guests so it does not come out of our pocket (as I am sure most do)

@Julie McCoy I'll hook you up when the time comes ;)

To second @Mark Hower, I have a business contact who runs a short term rental management company in Nashville and he told me that Airbnb sent out over 2,000 notifications to unlicensed airbnb owners and all were banned from airbnb for 3 years.  I would not recommend Nashville as a specifically short term rental oriented market for several years until they sort out the codes.

However, I own 5 short term rentals in the Smoky Mountain area of Tennessee, and they are killing it, and since the economy out there has relied on short term rental cabin/tourist traffic for decades, it would be one of the last municipalities to crack down on that, if you're still looking for ideas.

Hi Rojon!  Welcome to BP!  I have a long term in Nashville, 5 short terms in the Gatlinburg area, and am interested in long terms in other markets in TN currently.  Feel free to reach out with any questions you may have, particularly if you're interested in short terms!  I have made every mistake in the book and am happy for you to learn from mine rather than make them yourself.  Short terms can provide fantastic cash flow if you build a system and implement it.  Happy to chat anytime!

@Glen R. exactly!  We use it to help keep an eye on the energy guests are using, as they are known to get a fire going in the fireplace for ambiance and then blast the AC.  We use the Honeywells also.  The Nests are cool and all but you have to have a separate account for each property on their app and log in and out.  With the Honeywell you can use one account across multiple properties.

We were actually even able to get out in front of an HVAC issue by just keeping an eye on the temperature.  We noticed that it was 90 outside, the guest had it set to 70, and the temp was 80.  We were able to call an HVAC guy to go take a look before the guest even noticed to complain.  Super helpful.