All Forum Posts by: Erica Calella

This has been my plan as well! The only downside that I am experiencing is that the PM I have takes 30% off the top, so having different houses in different markets means lots of fees eating into my profit. Eventually I would like to set up some sort of "in-house" property management to cut back on these fees.

If you are able to self-manage those rentals, though, then the fee is a non-issue!

Thanks for sharing! I am currently in the WNC rental market, hoping to get into Charlotte soon!

Okay, I will look into that! What's interesting is that the rentals for October were booked at a higher rate than the current nightly rate for July and August. I thought that was odd, but since I am new to the market I wasn't sure what peak demand season actually was. 

This is really good insight thank you! My property is 2 bed 2 bath with an additional bed in the upstairs loft. I thought it interesting that the home was already booking up for the autumn months, but nothing was really coming in for summer yet. Last minute pricing strategy is definitely something to consider and something I will discuss with my property manager. My house has seen decent occupancy since February when I purchased, right around 40%. So I guess anything during the offseason would be considered a bonus in this market. Thank you again for your response!!

 I am happy that you are experiencing good occupancy! Was it like that from the jump for you? Or did it take some time for your property to establish a high volume of website visits, good reviews etc?

Hi everyone, question for those of you on here who have experience with STR, specifically in the Western North Carolina market.

At what point do summer vacation rentals typically start to book? As of today, my bookings for June-August are really light, but the house has done well so far considering the listing only went live in early March. My property manager has the property listed on most of the major booking sights, so I am comfortable with their efforts. I am mostly just trying to discover any tips or tricks or identify any strategies that I could potentially be missing out on. Or even just looking to find some reassurance while I play the waiting game.

Any insights, stories or shared experiences would be great!! I am a new investor in this area and am also looking to making connections with anyone else in this market who is open to it as well.

I would say it depends! Many investors have full time W2 jobs, myself included. It all depends on what "too thin" looks like for you personally. But I would also say this could be a great way for you to get more exposure to other investors and properties in your area and by building strong relationships, you may be able to find a cost savings competitive advantage. 

Thank you everyone who has contributed to this post. Your suggestions are all incredibly helpful and are much appreciated!!

Hi all,

I recently purchased an investment property as part of a 1031 exchange in Western North Carolina. The house needs repairs and various upgrading that I will need to address. It's also a STR so getting these improvements taken care of is really important to me. My lender packaged and sold my mortgage, and when I called the new servicer to inquire about a HELOC/ Home Equity Loan they told me I wasn't eligible because of my short ownership duration.

I am planning to pay for most of the improvements with cash I have on hand from my W2 job, but I want to get something set up in case of an emergency repair/ use towards other investment opportunities. I currently have about $180K of equity in the home, but would only look to set up a line of credit of ~$30-$50K. Any suggestions here? Are Rocket Mortgage and Lending Tree reputable and if I were to go that route, what would the process look like?

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