All Forum Posts by: Hans C Hormann

Its close to a national park in the sierra Nevada mountains in California.  There is only one place nearby (15 miles away) that is a lodge that has a restaurant, and a store and some rooms and it does happen to be forsale.... Its not exacly apples to apples though. I have looked at the 3 rooms they have and they have decent occupancy, but not sure if we bought current property if we then would almost flood the market with the increase of hotel rooms.

Thanks for all the replies.... Look I get that its different then running a couple cabins, I am looking at the possibilities of streamlining things like laundry, maint and other things when buying this so that it makes it also cheaper to run my other three cabins. Aka in our remote area there are no cleaning companies, laundry services, or even property managers so we are considering that if we brought the lodge back to life we would also expand our cleaning management in the area... My biggest challenge is trying to comp the "hypothetical" revenue. I figured there would be someone on the forum that has tackled a project comparable or even analysed a similar deal.....

Quote from @Michael Baum:

Hey @Hans C Hormann, sounds like an interesting project. I will say you can expect the city to get involved if you want to reactivate it as a lodge/business.

Before I did anything, get with the city and find out what they will require from you in order to move this forward as a working lodge with guests.

Also, you will most likely have to have the kitchen certified for use even if you just have others use it during events. It isn't like a church allowing the use of their kitchen during an event.

Any pics of the place? Love to see it!

Sorry for how grainy the pic is

Quote from @Leslie Anne Morris:

This won't be similar to that of managing 3 cabins.  You're buying a business.  You'll have a lot more overheard, employees, and to your point - all the licensing headaches.  I looked at a restaurant close to my cabins a few years ago and decided against it due to the additional complexity it presented.  At that time, it was better for me to take the money I was planning to invest and scale within my existing niche. 

 Yeah, this is small property so staffing would be minimal since the 10 rooms are in a different building. Running the special events I am already familiar with.

Hello All,

My wife and I are try to decipher if a property could be a gold mine.  There has been a lodge / small hotel that has 10 rooms for sale for about 2 years for a ridiculous price. Now the owner has dropped it closer to a reasonable price and there might be a possibility of owner financing. That being said we are trying to study the deal to see if it makes sense and/or gain experience by analyzing this deal. We own/manage 3 cabins in the area and I am a realtor but have only really done residential sales. I have done some research and there are not books as the property has basically been a private family getaway for the past 20 years so it stopped function as a lodge back in the 90's. The property itself is in good shape. I spoke with our county and they have no current permits on the property as a lodge due to that face that its been around since the 1920's and I dont think the county was hassling with permits for this area in the 1990's. Now we would have to go get a special use permit and probably some other environmental permits to get the kitchen re certified. Our initial thoughts was to update some of the property to have more amenities to add to the guest experience and to offer it as a wedding venue. We would not want to open the old restaurant but contract with local catering companies to run the bar and food during special events and also offer corporate retreats. So far we had one person that we spoke with us give us some hypothetical numbers but I want to get possibly some other 2nd opinions before we start to think about making an offer. Thanks for any thoughts or Ideas.

Has anyone signed up yet? Looks like we are all wondering if its legit or more for the novice host?

@Andrew Garcia, We bought low at 650k and now it just appraised at 750 in less than 12 months... At the time we were already tapped for funds so we didn't have a big enough down to buy something more and we also knew that it was not going to be a forever home since we figured we would convert it to a STR as soon as we hit the road. I am working on getting a Heloc so that we have enough for 5% on homes in the 855-950k range. That is why we are just considering buying the new primary, moving in and setting up as a str and just storing our personals in the garage while we rent it out on the road.

I agree with Charlie, I have been a realtor since 2003 and when the market in 06 was almost at the top I had a client try to get me to list his house higher than what the market was... Long story short I referred him to another agent and it sat for 6 months and sold at the same price I suggested. Also with the way things are currently going, you risk staying on the market too long at a higher price and the market changing drastically. You want to be just under the market so that people look and offer on your house as opposed to the competitions listings. Much like fishing if you have action it draws more fish.

Hello All, 

Background:

Wife and I both educators and I am also a realtor. In the past year we have scaled from 1 STR to 10. We even bought a new primary (temporary) to unlock the rental potential in our first primary home. That all being said we we are both quitting/taking a leave of absence to travel on and off for the next year with our 5 and 3 year old while remotely managing our str's meanwhile banking cashflow to buy a new primary when we return next spring/summer 2023.

Ideas I need feedback on:

- Buy a primary that we are okay living in with our family for the next 2-5 years before we hit the road , and rent it out while we are gone for a couple months at a time while realizing appreciation since things in our area are still moving up.

- Wait until we get back after banking money from renting all our properties and hope that our 2 years of investment property tax returns will help us to buy a new primary. (we really dont want to comeback to our current primary after we return)

Good to think about. I live in a great STR market and the prices are only projected to keep increasing, thus my thoughts on buying a better home than my current spot and causally rent it while we are traveling.