All Forum Posts by: Brian Barch

I think a lot needs to be said of expectations. Real estate has historically been a long term play.

this idea that someone who otherwise never cared about real estate, can simply dial up a realtor and buy instant 4 digit monthly cashlfow is something born out of YouTube. To anyone who ever thought that, there window of luck ended with 3% interest rates.

I bought a year ago. Business is robust and perhaps even moreso this year vs last, however it’s hard for me to tell how much of that was due to being new. My booking leadtimes have gone from 2 weeks to 2 months which is great. 

We also use often for personal use, so in that sense, I had nothing to lose.

I’m in Clayton, which has a bit more to do for the outdoor enthusiast, but overall similar to your market.

we do get weeklong stays. Maybe 8 a year if I had to guess. They tend to be people that get really deep into the outdoors (whitewater rafting, Tallulah gorge, black rock state park, wineries, zip lining, etc). Lots of 3-4 day stays as well.

in many of the mountain markets, you have to have size, I’d say the ability to sleep 14+ to do 100k. 

Ironically, In my market, I almost think you’d have a better shot of doing $200k for a $1M cabin than you would $100k for a $500k home if that makes any sense. 

I do about $55k on a $320k cabin and I’m super happy with that.

I also think if you bought land and built the right kind of home (container, treehouse, etc) you might be able to achieve this. 

Just 1. Open to having more, for our family we like any STR's to hold dual appeal as our personal vacation rental and a profitable investment. We have money to invest when the next opportunity comes along, we are trying to let some of the industry shake out happen first.

Learnings:
1) Finding a place with level seasonality (Southern Appalachians) was a good play for us.  We never really have a month under 60% occupancy, and thus don't have to worry about weathering monthly storms.  I underestimated the value of this

2) A good cleaner makes the most difference from an operations stand point.  Find someone with a pride of ownership.  This likely WON'T be someone off a platform like Turno, but someone local to the area

3) Just get started!  You'll learn so much along the way that you can take into future investments.  You will NEVER get a sure bet, so at some point you need a little bit of faith

4) Understand what amenities over-index in your area.  That might be a pool, hot tub, game room, etc.

5) Pricing is near everything.  I can't tell you how many under-performing places I find that are only under-performing because the host got lazy on knowing the pricing for their market.  I'm talking people to don't differentiate between weekdays/weekends, people who refuse to go below $200/night when the whole calendar is empty, etc.

N GA mountains.

Oct and Nov are 90% booked. Dec probably only 40% right now. Just wrapping up first year but seems more robust than last?

 What are the details? Purchase price, how much you owe, fair market value, how negative is the cash flow? 

Certainly there is an emotional component here, but this is basically a math problem we can solve for to determine the best outcome

You can explore non local companies, like keybee or awning.com to name 2 such a ones that charge less. 

But note they use an out sourced low cost country to handle half the work. Not saying it’s bad or wrong, just something to note

Agree with the other reply, BR is becoming a more mature market, in that the table stakes are higher than they used to be. Hot tub is considered necessary. From what I’m seeing, large, high end cabins are doing very well

I think the novelty of it would do better as an STR assuming your area of Atlanta allows STRs.

I’d use awning.com to start to estimate revenue potential, and compare to Zillow for LTR rents. Neither is perfect, but it’s a start