All Forum Posts by: Graham Reblitz

For that price range a condo might work due to the lower acquisition cost, but @Jeremy Kloter is right that the fees will eat you up! I also find another problem you will run into in condos. In any building that allows short term rentals, you will have a majority of the owners doing STR. They will all have essentially the same product as you, BUT they will have purchased at a much lower price point. That means their overhead is way lower, so they have no pressure to increase rate to what you will need to get to cash flow. The fact that there's a ton of competition and similar products in the same location actually puts downward pressure on rates! There are exceptions but I see this a lot.

For your questions:
Pinellas is the most densely populated county in the state, so there are good ROI spots but you'll just want to look at each property on a case by case basis. Doing by zip code won't work unless you're looking at beach zips! As a rule of thumb, the closer to the beaches, the better. I'll let others in Tampa tell you about those areas. In that price point, you'll do well to look in Seminole Heights.

Value add will always be your best bet for better ROI, but out of town buyers usually will want as close to turnkey as possible.

A pool will add 30%+ to your ADR.  In a vacation rental in Florida, people want a pool.  That may not be doable at that price point, but keep it in mind.

Hillsborough and Tampa say they have a 7 day minimum; I've never heard of anyone enforcing it. Pinellas has a lot of different cities with different regulations. Clearwater definitely enforce their regulations, even if there's been plenty of people flying under the radar. St Pete allows owner -occupied STR, and 3 turns under 30 days otherwise. Then they limit to 30 day stays. There's plenty of people flouting the rules, but I don't recommend it -- at any time they could address their housing shortage by cracking down on STR heavily.

Most of the time a condo/townhome won't be the right fit due to condo fees, hoa fees, etc that make it more costly for the ownership but also more management intensive. Homes can work depending on the price point but we'd recommend just jumping into a 2-4 unit property. Stay away from the lower income areas, typically we see properties more distressed, more challenging situations with tenants and late payments etc, we manage around 400 units and from experience its worth spending a little more money to be in a better part of town with more qualified tenants. There are some transitioning areas (like Ybor) where we like to check out, West Tampa, some parts of St Pete and Clearwater are growing well also. With your price point I'd look for a duplex that is 350k or so, but if all you can do is a good house to start, then start there. 

Don't buy in the cheapest neighborhoods, those returns are much better on paper than real life. 

If you buy a condo watch out for the HOA fees and their bylaws.

Try seminole heights, central Pinellas county, or look up in Pasco, you'll get a much better house and neighborhood for that price range. 

I'd recommend re-doing this post with the location on tagged to Tampa - thats the best way to get good local information because people can sort these forums by location in addition to the forum categories