Hey
Welcome to BP.
I am originally from the UK and have lived here in Orlando for 18 years.
I can tell you that the vacation rentals in the Orlando / Disney area are not doing as well as one might think. Most owners are lucky to get 50% occupancy each year.
One major problem is the fact that almost every owner has their property with a "management company". These companies can be OK (there are some very good ones) but most do not keep the properties in very good shape for rentals.
The fees and costs involved in the upkeep of these homes have left many owners with barely enough to pay the mortgage. They certainly do not have the funds to continually update these homes and maintain the high standards required to offer their home as a short term rental. A lot of owners have ended up leasing their homes to long term renters in an attempt to cover their costs and even that doesn't work.
Another factor is that quite naturally, every vacationer wants to be as close to Disney as possible. Well, you can't get much closer than on Disney property so what is Disney doing? You got it; they are offering rental homes themselves, their very own vacation homes on property at an all inclusive price that most people simply can not compete with.
Disney offers a huge amount of packages where families can stay on property and have transportation, park tickets etc. etc. all included.
With short term rentals, you have to buy it (at least a 3/2 with pool), completely furnish it with absolutely everything you would find in your own home, pay for monthly pool and lawn care, management fees, deal with sales tax, property tax, short term rental tax, cleaning fees, maintenance fees, ******** fees and on and on and on and all this to get it rented for maybe 30 weeks out of the year in an area completely saturated with rentals.
(Yuk, been there, done that)
You also have the personal issues, are you intending to live here or leave all this up to a management company? You obviously need a business visa to be able to live and stay in the U.S. and of course an actual business to operate these properties (yet more overhead).
There are a boat load of short term rentals on the market for sale these days, a lot of them in foreclosure which proves that all the empty income promises made by management companies simply didn't happen.
So, if you don't want a management company, you better have pretty long arms when it comes to unblocking the toilet that some tourist has done a number on, you need to be able to compete with Disney and Universal, you better not expect too much in the way of profit on rentals and you better be ready for some very unexpected surprises.
Other than all of the above, it's a great idea and I wish you every success :)
(Sorry, just me being a smartass)
