All Forum Posts by: Lucas Bernard

@Lucas Bernard Hi Lucas, I’m from Northern New Hampshire around Bretton Woods and Cannon Mountain and owned Bed and Breakfasts there for 24 years.

In my area we have golf courses and hiking within a short drive, 5-40 minutes that draws in tons of people from early May-September. Which if you have these of mountain biking is a great growing market.

In late September-mid October you get fall foliage people and you can expect to raise your rates by at least 50-70% if you do good marketing during this time of the year and set a longer minimum number of night stay also during this time. If you normally require 2 nights, now you can require 3-4 once you get established.

Once your ski mountain really gets open winter will be busy. Not like the first 3 weeks when they have two runs open to say they were the first mountain open in Vermont but once they have significant terrain open. This can be a primarily weekend business but during school vacation both new Hampshire and Massachusetts as well as Christmas week you should expect to get at least a 5 night stay if not a full week at peak prices. If you can figure out how to market to a foreign market you might be able to get longer stays than just the weekends.

Mud season is the hardest, March and April. If there are local maple syrup events and you can market these year round in advance this is the best way to book ahead. Otherwise this is a great time of the year to do repairs and maintenance or for you to take advantage of the cabin yourself and have a getaway during the down time. Especially if local restaurants are still open.

Hey @Lucas Bernard happy Thanksgiving to you as well!

I have no experience in that area, but you can bet that spring will be the slow time there.

Summer will be good, winter as well. Fall will bring the leaf folks so stays should be pretty solid.

Have you done a search on VRBO and AirBNB in the area to get a gander at other rentals in that area? What is their occupancy like?

Here are the regs on STR in Killington - https://www.killingtontown.com/?SEC=94EB1515-E187-49C1-A7B2-...

You have to make sure the STR rules in the area you are looking are either non-existant or common sense.

I'm looking to purchase a multi family house hack soon, and I've heard all about this One Mortgage that's subsidized by Massachusetts through MHP. Long story short, I've gotten lots of different information from lenders and even MHP themselves. Has anyone gone through and done this process before? What is the maximum home price you can qualify for with the One Mortgage and the One+ option? 

Thanks in advance! :)

Thanks for the loop in @Sam Horton!

@Lucas Bernard How much of a home you can buy really mostly depends on YOU (DTI, job history/stability, credit score, etc.) like Sam mentioned. The County loan limits are certainly important, but for instance Boston's conforming loan limit on a three family is $1,123,900. Which might be more than you wanted to spend anyhow!

I personally do not provide the One Mortgage, so I cannot comment on exact guidelines. However, we certainly have SAVED a number of One Mortgage deals that a borrower was promised something that could not be delivered! Usually related to DTI issues! Always happy to chat it through

Best,








@Lucas Bernard@Lucas Bernard

 1) Great question! 

Imagine that there were no minimum wage at all. In today's economy, how much would McDonald's be hiring entry level employees at? It's tempting to think "$1.00 an hour", but that would not be the case. I drive by a local McDonalds that is advertising $18 per hour for entry level positions. 

That's because no one is willing to work for minimum wage. This is true in many places around the US. For the minimum wage to have any impact on what McDonald's pays it's workers, it would have to be $18.50 per hour. 

Effectively, we don't really have a meaningful minimum wage right now - because there are so few people who are willing to work for $7.25 an hour, even entry level positions, like flipping burgers at McDonalds have to pay much, much more than that. Now, there are people who argue whether there should be a minimum wage or not, but the current economic climate appears to be a vote in favor of eliminating the minimum wage or keeping it at it's current level. Most who want a job are able to get one, and at least where I live and drive to, it appears, that they can do so at double the current Federal Minimum wage, easily.

I predict that one impact of this will be that a lot more high schoolers and teenagers are employed in coming years - as they are the ones who are likely to be hired at or near the minimum wage. This could be very good for our economy long-term.

So, with the current minimum wage is nearing an all time low - the effect is similar to not having a minimum wage at all. And we are able to see that the minimum wage, when it is very low or nonexistent, may be disconnected with median wages - they are going up, even as the minimum wage does not change. 

2) Personally, I am a little skeptical of this claim that life was better a generation ago. That's how people feel, but the data doesn't seem to back that up. Here's a great study that in my opinion debunks the claim that the 1980s were better than today. It's not ALL better today, but I think that the data make an overwhelmingly strong case that it is much, much better to be alive and American in 2022 than it was in the 1980s across a broad range of important quantifiable items.

I think that it always seems like the old days were better. Houses are much bigger today. Cars much more reliable, get better gas mileage. We have things like the internet, personal computers, smartphones. Healthy food is easier to come by and more Americans are eating it. The same goods you bought in 1980, with the notable exceptions of tuition and healthcare, are cheaper today, adjusted for inflation and wages. Housing costs have essentially not changed - per the study I sent above. Relatively speaking, travel is much easier and more affordable (as evidenced that more people travel now).

I think that things are more unequal (although inequality is at the very beginning stages of starting to correct in this past 6 month period) today than they were a generation ago. Perhaps this is why so many people feel that the old days were better.

A great book on this topic is "Factfulness" - most people think that the world is getting worse and worse with each passing year and through the generations. The reverse is true. People are generally richer, living longer, there are fewer deaths for children, and there are fewer disasters. The media, however, is more centralized, and more efficient than ever at finding the problems in society, highlighting them, and doing so in a way that drives engagement. People click on disaster, so the news reports it. 

Case in point, Violent crime has dropped by nearly 50% on a per capita basis over the last 35 years and it bounces around at this new, historical low, up and down slightly each year. It's hard to find a time when you have been safer as an American than over the past 5 years. Yet, if you get your news from mainstream media like Fox, CNN, the NY Times, or the WSJ, you'd think we are falling off a cliff! That gets headlines, but the real story is one of prosperity, improving quality of life, and falling crime rates. 

No, this is not true for everyone. No this doesn't mean that we don't have our problems we have to fix. But, the story is that the economy continues to improve for the median American.

 I think the best thing to do is to jump into it. It is easy to get stuck in analysis paralysis.

I bought my first property in Columbus, Ohio before I read any books or listened to any podcasts. It was a house hack so it was a little more forgiving.