All Forum Posts by: Erin Spradlin

@Casity Kao,@Logan Allec - Hey- I'm a real estate agent that specializes in Airbnb investments in Denver and Colorado Springs. Denver has implemented some laws that legalize airbnb for your primary residence, but it can be difficult for investors. There's some tolerance to it if you can keep your neighbors happy, but it's not a long-term strategy unless you plan on living there. (Also, Denver is expensive and getting more expensive.) We advise our clients to look south at Colorado Springs for airbnb, which is about 5 years behind Denver on prices, is appreciating quickly, and is very Airbnb friendly. They don't have laws around it right now and have no plans to implement any. I have clients that have bought there for this reason as well as family that are running two single family homes down there for just airbnb and short tern rentals. Right now, the Colorado Springs Airbnb market is very attractive. 

@Lindsay Broome - you can call your city planner and they will tell you everything that you need to know about the legality of renting them separately. As @Jay Helms said though, it makes sense to make sure you are covered insurance wise. We run a real estate business with a lot of airbnb-minded clients and the number one thing we tell people to be is super clear with their insurance on what is going on and the legality behind it, so that you know you are totally insured and some loophole won't come up at a later time. Good luck. 

Hey Joe- you should also consider Mint. It's also an Intuit program, but free. Once you start to categorize your transactions, it holds those categories and you have to do substantially less work over time. It becomes very easy to see where your money is going and how much is coming in. It's what we use for our small business. Good luck. 

Thanks for sharing this. This Denver Post article: https://www.denverpost.com/2017/12/21/denver-short..., states that we have 70% compliance rate and are well above other cities (STRAC also echos this- pointing out that we do far better than other cities.)

Agree with @Tyler Work that the auditor seems to be addressing issues that other departments do not see as problematic. My other take away from this was that if anything needs to change, it may just be a further push in public education on how to be in compliance. 

At 70% though, I'd also want to know what an ideal/realistic compliance goal is? 

In general, Quickbooks (which is around $7/month) or Mint (totally free), can also help you track these costs. They aren't set up specifically for short or medium term rentals, but they can be easily modified to track your expenses. Good luck. 

If you're looking outside of Texas, we recommend Colorado Springs for Airbnb to our clients. The city is benefiting from Denver's overflow, the culture is quickly changing to a more desirable place to live, and, physically, it's a very beautiful city. Point being it's appreciating. Also, the city seems to embracing Airbnb rather than rejecting it. If you'd like to discuss more, shoot me a message and we can discuss. 

Piggybacking off @James Carlson, you could also hire out property management (to a super host or to a company). In this case, you won't see as many returns as you would without it, but it's totally passive then and the short-term rental rates are stronger than your average long term renter. 

@David Smith - @James Carlson and I research airbnb laws around Denver to find out what's legal and what's not. @Account Closedundefined

Hey Amy- BiggerPockets has videos on how to do Airbnb as well. If you go to youtube and search "Airbnb", you'll see a few come up related to getting started, pros/cons, nightmare stories, etc. I know in the immediate future they are planning on doing videos about how to make income off Airbnb and scale (I know because I'm in the videos/write the blog content for it.) So, with that my advice would be to hold off on that seminar because the content will be on this site for free over the next couple months. 

I've pulled the Airbnb laws for Denver and different mountain communities related to short-term rentals. I would check to see which city or area it falls under and call the city planner. You want to make sure that the property is in an area zoned for STRs. Mountain towns tend to be pretty friendly, but they have certain zones where you have to have longer rents to help keep it affordable for seasonal workers.