All Forum Posts by: Greg Gaudet

Aloha everyone!

Come join us Thursday July 11th for the second Maui Wealth Builders Real Estate Investors Meetup organized by Pono Properties & mauihomebuyers.com! There is no fee and there will be no pitching of any products or services.

We will meet at the tables outside at the new Starbucks, next door to Fork and Salad across from Target at 5:30PM. Please come prepared to learn and to share your knowledge and experience so that we can all help each other and grow our businesses together!

The Maui Wealth Builders group was organized to go a little deeper than our normal meetups. We will be holding events with experienced full time investors presenting and sharing their knowledge, and we will have events where you can bring a deal you are currently analyzing to present to the group and get feedback/input/suggestions from the most experienced investors on Maui.

If you have a deal you are analyzing and would like input on please bring all the numbers if you’re willing to discuss. 

Message me with any questions or suggestions, and PLEASE click "attend event" so we know how many to expect.

Hey BPers,

Trying to determine the best route to create my website to produce more leads. Carrot and lead propeller sound great (leaning towards carrot) but $50/month forever seems steep, and if I ever decide to cancel I have to start from scratch.

Does anyone have any feedback on these providers, specifically how they would compare to the traditional route of making my own website and maybe paying a friend that makes website for a living to show me how to optimize it so that I can spend an hour each week on SEO etc. and save the $600/year?

I’m far from tech-savvy, so I may be naive, but it seems like I could do the same thing for a lot cheaper in the long run?

Thanks for your input!

@Kris L.

I would factor that fuel in, and I would consider renting it on turo. Maybe keep my previous car and list them both, drive whichever isn’t rented

@Matt R.

Just sold ALL my rentals to a wholesaler and put all my equity into bitcoin and ripple! I can hear my lambo already!!!

Naaahh jk haha but I do own some crypto. I Did great in 2017, tripled my money. Should’ve sold when it was up though! But maybe there’ll be another craze at some point and I’ll cash out my original investment, maybe take some profits and leave a little in just to see what happens.

I have no education qualifying me to even pretend like I understand the true value of each coin. So I figured just throw a little in there at the top coins and a couple wildcards and who cares if it goes to zero.

Listen to Loren. 

Unfortunately my fiancé had to build our primary. We bought a half acre with her parents, splitting the cost, and we each built our own 1,100 sq ft homes. So we got something nicer than we probably would've bought on our own, especially for under 500k. But it's costing us almost 3k/month. Not a good investment. 

We should have bought a fixer house and ohana, lived in the upstairs and rented the downstairs and ohana. By doing a rehab we could've created equity and by having a couple rentals we could've covered our mortgage (or close to it at least). Then I could've used the equity to buy more rentals. Then her parents could've bought something in the same neighborhood. But she had this dream for them to live on the same land as us, so she can go spend time with them anytime. It's an expensive dream.

The compromise was that I put all of my money into buying rentals and I would not be on the loan, since she had her parents income to help qualify, so my DTI didn't get hurt from this.

I really need to look into the laws on having a tiny home and run the numbers to see if that would be worth the investment. That would be the best way to offset some of the mortgage since I'm already paying for the land.

@Paul Magda

Need a partner? If it’s really that good of a portfolio I’ll go in with you! Or wholesale it to me...

I'm driven by my passion for RE, helping people, and the pursuit of financial freedom and working by choice instead of necessity. 

Your title is missing some info.. What type of investor are you? Where are you located in Hawaii?

I wish I had bought that condo in SF from you in 2001... 

What's it worth today?

Since it's not already a STR, make sure it's fully legal in the city and the HOA to do STR and make sure that won't be changing whenever the crackdown on Airbnb comes.

Also, unless you're getting a killer deal on this unit, it might be worth considering some units that are already STRs, to save the cost of furnishing, preparing for STR, permitting - if required there, and the long process of building of repeat guests and occupancy... Unless you're getting such a great price that it makes up for those added costs, it might be worth considering.

@John Underwood

Second what John said and add to it:

Call the vacation rental management companies in the area and fund out what their average occupancy rates are.

I would also request booking and income history and future bookings from the seller to see how the unit has performed. That’s probably your best metric since this unit may have an aspect that makes it more or less desirable.

There are so many other factors that go into your occupancy...

STR occupancy will vary by market, and even from two buildings a block apart. In Maui we can often achieve 85-95% occupancy (people come here year round). But there are many markets that might average 50-60%. I go to an island off NJ; Long Beach island and they can be as low as 20% or less since they really only get rented June-September.

Another factor of course is the condition, location and view of your unit and your nightly rate. If your neighbor charges $100/night and you charge $150 and his unit is nicer, you probably won’t achieve the occupancy that your market produces.

One more factor is history. Generally, The longer a unit has been a STR, the higher the occupancy since each year you'll earn more repeat guests that book the same dates each year.

Qualifications: I’ve worked w STRs for 7 years including managing 67 vacation rental condos on Maui for a few years.