All Forum Posts by: Michael Elliott

@Michael Elliott

Hey Michael,

It is still going strong along with another one I launched earlier this year. There is a plethora of STR's in Gainesville and it has gotten quite saturated. With that said, the properties that stand out are still providing a great COC return.

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $270,000
Cash invested: $55,000

This was my first STR that I purchased in Gainesville Fl. It is projected to gross 48k but similar listings have brought in 70k the past year. I am projecting 2k net cash flow the first year but I will update this as the coming months go by!

How did you finance this deal?

DSCR loan through TheOneBrokerage

Anyone use their service to set up an AZ limited partnership to protect your investments? I’m very intrigued by the service and how detailed the protection strategy is. Curious as to what anyone else’s experience with them has been.

@Gregory Cudzilo  Sure.  We purchased the house in end of February and took about 2 months to repaint/fix a few items/decorate/and get furniture delivered.  We began opening it up for guests in the end of May.  It has been profitable right away starting in June.  July was our best month so far.  Oct we pretty much broke even, but the hurricane Ian scared a few guests. Here's our listing:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/6...

I think it turned out well.  We really like going there and so do the kids. The area is SUPER competitive.  

Few recommendations:

*Theme the house and make it a solid listing.  We spent quite a bit of time down in Kissimmee getting the place ready.  My wife is a huge Disney fan, so it wasn't an issue staying often.

*Pricing Engine - We use wheelhouse.com and are still tweaking the rules a bit.

*Wear and tear - This is probably the house that gets the most beating.  Budget $100-200/month on avg for repairs ? 

*Competition - During the slow season I think I saw over 1000 listings available.....do all the tricks to be listed in pages 1..3

*Location - I think this is also one of the key items....being within 15 minutes of the Disney parks is a huge plus.

When looking around and examining the other properties there are TONs of well themed and decorated houses.  But there are also a high number of very mediocre listings......and the area will ALWAYS have tons of tourists.  Disney parks seem to be close to capacity all the time.   Universal is in the process of building a massive new park which should draw even more people.

If I were to get a second property, I would either get one again very close to Disney again OR planning ahead find a location near the the new epic universal park - https://www.floridatix.com/blo...

Good luck.

Hi Michael - We own and manage homes in Solara, I can recommend it for a strong ROI, and there is full access to the clubhouse, and better quality food and drinks there, than at other resorts. The only extra pay for guests is the surf-rider. HOA covers twice daily valet trash too.

Solara is zoned for STR, and does not restrict management firms, like encore.
From my experience, security has been good, there's plenty of space around the pools and clubhouse area too, so it's never loud or crowded, and the HOA appears to also cater to a broader more modern and contemporary audience, to include its Canadian, Brazilian and European guests and investors. All this makes for great guest reviews and helps increase revenues.

We don’t sell property, but I can recommend the two gentlemen who replied to your post, as they know the STR 34747 zip code well.
 We only focus on managing vacation homes within the top resorts around disney world, which include encore and solara (along with Windsor area resorts, and championsgate). We also team up with great interior designers who can boost revenue too.

Let me know if I can help, as a fellow investor or property manager.  
Thanks. Andy 

@Michael Elliott

Solara is just one of many resort communities that are specifically built for STR. A few of the other top communities that you want to consider are Championsgate, Solterra, Windsor Island, Windsor Hills, Paradise Palms, Windsor at Westside, Storey Lake. These are all STR communities that have similar amenities, close to Disney and have various sized homes that do well in the STR space.

None of these communities will be changing to residential neighborhoods, although a couple do have residential 'sides' that full time residents live in and can not be rented short term.

Two of the big communities that you will have some issues with self managing are Reunion and Margaritaville. These both have restrictions on membership/guest amenity usage. I personally would stay away from condo-tels as they will be even worse and you'll have less opportunity to cash flow. 

Hope this helps, best of luck!

Solara is a great neighborhood. I think many of the homes you see for sale are just investors that are trying to realize the equity growth in their properties. The HOA is certainly not trying to push out short-term rentals.