All Forum Posts by: Doug Fluckiger

@Bonnie Low Thank you, great idea! We'll try that.

@Chris Seveney When we started there were six STRs in this whole zip code—eastern Memphis/Cordova—not ritzy, but decent area. So the problem is not competition. LTRs in this area don't pencil out: the properties would pay for themselves and nothing more, and then we have to rehab them with ~0 cash flow, when tenants move out. 

@Allen Duan You name it. As soon as we finished rehab on our second unit, the very first guests kept their dogs indoors all the time for 30-day rental, to the point that we had to replace all upstairs carpet. Airbnb's AirCover agreeing to reimburse and then not following through despite repeated followups. Insufficent rentals via Airbnb so signed up with VRBO, no rentals at all that way; signed up with booking.com (warning! don't try this at home!) and that provides a constant stream of cancellations, people using pot in the apartment and messes throughout, having to cancel subsequent guests and spending hundreds on cleanup, people smoking against rules, extra guests that were nondisclosed, police visits—yikes.

Quote from @Hunter Reed:

Doug, get in contact with the housing directors for the hospital. Once you reach out to the HR department ask them which travel agencies they are working with. More than likely these agencies are working with multiple different hospitals. Build a relationship with the recruiters and they should gift you withe MTR tenants consistently. 

YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO THE BIGGER POCKETS PODCAST #728 it will answer all your questions.

 Thanks for the tips, Hunter. Good suggestions.

Quote from @Nicole Heasley Beitenman:

Have you reached out to the hospitals directly?

 Good idea, Nicole, I'll do that.

Our plan starting out was to do MTRs exclusively for all the reasons everyone does. The problem is consistently finding tenants. FurnishedFinder gave us exactly one tenant for <30 days and it was a mess (collecting rent, contract, etc.) Not impressed with FurnishedFinder. We've had a few 30-day + tenants from Airbnb and we love 'em, but not enough to pay the bills. Memphis is a "super hub" for FedEx and I've tried reaching out to them; there are other online marketplaces for traveling professionals housing, but no dice. We have several hospitals <10 miles from us, our prices are competitive, still no dice. We had to start accepting shorter and shorter STRs to pay the bills and those are one disaster after another, to the point that we're considering selling out altogether. How do you consistently find those MTR tenants?

Thank you, @Chris Seveney. Checking out your website now …

Thanks @Marco Bario. I will keep that in mind going forward.

Thanks, @Jamie Bateman. Good information.

I have a couple of STRs generating good cash flow but am looking down the road and have been reading about investing in notes. I have one question that might be blindingly obvious to you but is not to me: Must I already have the cash in hand in order to invest in notes? That is, if I buy a note worth $100k so that the mortgage holder now makes payments to me, I must have $100k in cash lying around to buy the note in the first place—it's not something that can be financed, like an investment property. Correct?