All Forum Posts by: Brian Barch

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

I think your focus is in the wrong place.

Work on down payment funding, analyzing properties and markets, etc

I only pay attention to the total when booking, and typically when I stay at an Airbnb it’s on vacation to a cool destination where the experience is so much better than a hotel (which also has a plethora of fees), and so $300/night to stay Oceanside is worth it.

what I do know is that a lot of municipalities have increased their taxes on STRs as a part of their regulations.

Our fee is $160 and we have about 70 stays a year. To be fair, we have higher than average occupancy for our market, close to 80% year round.

I’d probably start with market avg occupancy (60%?) and assume a 3 night average stay.

again, this will vary greatly by market and house size

In a somewhat weird way, I don’t mind higher rates. They keep the competition down and force me to underwrite under the worst of conditions. To some extent I try to ignore them, and just underwrite the numbers.

To me I’m more concerned with buying good properties in good areas.

One thing I won’t do is buy a crappy property just because it cash flows. I personally want to be proud of the property a decade from now

I’m in N GA. Yes, you need one, it’s table stakes. We pay to have it serviced. People want to use it year round, they love resting the muscles after hiking (although I’m not personally a hot tub lover). 

Yes, it is the thing with the most problems. It can just turn green from seemingly no reason, people will track dirt and pebbles in, etc. but it hasn’t been that bad.

many guess is the breakeven might be 18 months?

I don’t want to state the obvious, but when I was in college my roommate and landlord bought a hot tub, not knowing he had to pay $900 to upgrade the electrical. Just an FYI if you didn’t know. Also common to reinforce the deck underneath, but a good hot tub place should help with all of that 

I am VERY MUCH with John on this one. So many STR influencers out there are being paid to confuse you and convince you that you need a huge set of tools to run one or even a few STRs.

I'm not saying tools can't have their time and place, but in hindsight I can say that I would advise someone to:

1) start on Airbnb.  Use their tools.  Get in a routine

2) Add VRBO, sync the calendars

3) THEN determine if you want to add things like dynamic pricing and whatnot.  

To me, you can paralyze yourself and never just get started.  You add unnecessary complexity to just starting out trying to make sure everything syncs just right and works super hands off.  Start small, and your gut will tell you if and when you need to add "passive" tools to help you

I live in the ATL metro, have researched and ADU for the sake of parents living on the property.

I think the core challenge is, when it's all said and done, I think It's hard to build something you are proud of for less than $250K all in when you factor in the testing, permits, land prep, utilities, the building.  

I don't doubt that someone that is super handy can do it cheaper, but that's about the price conclusion I've come to.

But that said, I think it's absolutely worth it depending on location and subject to STR regulations. I think it greatly increases the value of your home as well. Not to state the obvious, but you have to be okay having others on your personal property all the time.

We do not. We do have it serviced/maintained by professionals 2X/mo