All Forum Posts by: Jason Muth

Hi Bianca - we also have 2 (soon to be 3) STRs in New Hampshire and also live in the Boston area. We're about a half hour south of Lake Winnipesaukee.

How have your rentals been going since you purchased them? Would love to compare notes!

If Airbnb uses a click-to-book metric in their ranking algorithm (which I don't know if it does, but Google uses a similar ranking in its algorithm), wouldn't this negatively impact a property by driving tons more clicks to a listing without getting bookings?

Investment Info:

Single-family residence buy & hold investment.

Purchase price: $192,000
Cash invested: $38,000

A few years of BP podcasts and lurking the forums, and we finally took action!

Back in 2016, before we had any idea what we were doing, we took the leap and purchased this lake home in New Hampshire.

Our first investment property - a lake home in New Hampshire that we have turned into a profitable short-term rental.

What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

We had been visiting this lake for years and knew that we would be for years to come. We had enough for a small down payment and wanted to get into an investment. Others around the lake had been renting their properties to vacationers, and we figured that we could as well. Airbnb was just starting to gain steam, so we gave it a shot!

How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

We were walking down the street and saw the For Sale sign! The house had been on the market for months and was recently reduced by $30k.

How did you finance this deal?

20% down payment / Conforming 30-year fixed loan @ 3.5%

(Fun fact, we won about 1/3 of the down payment in Las Vegas when we hit a Royal Flush on Let It Ride and won $15k. We unfortunately didn't bet the progressive that would have added $400k atop that...whoops!)

How did you add value to the deal?

Immediately, the goal was to make the home look less like a well-maintained grandparents' home and more like a lake home
We resurfaced the brick fireplaces with lake stone veneers, which really transformed the space
We repainted everything in neutral / natural tones (beige, greys, light blue, light green)
In the ensuing years, we added landscaping beds using rocks from around the property
Built a paver patio, pathway, and firepit
Added a retaining wall landscaping bed to redirect water

What was the outcome?

The outcome has been fantastic. We learned how to become short-term rental operators.

I'm now an Airbnb Superhost and Premier Host on VRBO.

Gross revenues tripled within four years.

The property has more than doubled in value, and as of this writing, we have reduced the principal balance on the mortgage by 25%.

Six years after I purchased this home, and because of subsequent short-term rental purchases, and I was able to leave the corporate world and my W-2 job for good

Lessons learned? Challenges?

We learned a ton:

- How to navigate the Airbnb and VRBO platforms and optimize our listings

- How to communicate with guests throughout their booking, stay, and post-stay time periods

- How to operate a STR and still be a good neighbor to community members who live nearby year-round

- Navigating crises (After one month, we had a frozen / burst pipe and flood affecting all 3 floors while guests were present, which could have been a financial and emotional disaster)

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

Yes! Rory Gill at NextHome Titletown Real Estate and UrbanVillage Legal. Operating in MA and NH.

Hi Alex,
We manage the properties ourselves with some help on the ground - for example, I have a guest at one of them now and he reporting hearing some chirping noise. I assumed it was a smoke detector or sump pump battery, because this has happened before. But when he told me where he heard the noise, it was coming from another unit (it's a 4-unit building in Provincetown). So I called our property manager, who are on retainer for issues such as this. I've called them in a pinch maybe 5-7 times over the years, and they are great. Showed up same day and let me know it was indeed another unit's smoke detector.

I handled all of that while leading an all-day roundtable meeting with corporate folks in town.

Just be prepared for stuff like that. Usually, the systems take care of themselves. And as long as you've invested time in building systems and having some type of eyes on the ground (for example, in NH, my neighbor cleans and takes care of snow removal), it's a couple hours each week at most for the majority of guests. Sometimes I get chatty people who text about a number of things. But usually I don't.

If I decided to scale, I'd need more help on the ground. But Airbnb and VRBO take care of the marketing, I'm the primary point of contact with communications because I do it well, and my places are as full as I'd like them to be - which isn't to say 365 days. But any gaps I have are seasonal and expected.

Awesome insights as always, Jon. I really need to get to one of your in-person meetups in the coming months. I see Kyle posting about them all the time.

Question - you're suggesting to clients that they should move up their spring listings to now? I know that rates are going up, but are you thinking that this velocity will cool off in the spring? I was seeing indications that the current conditions would only continue, if not tilt even further in the sellers' direction through the whole of the spring market.

Hi Alex - I found myself in a similar position when we bought our first investment property in 2016.

We went the Airbnb route, and now have 3, with a 4th being built as new construction.

Decided on markets about 1.5-2.5 miles from Boston, where we live, and they ended up being both cash-flowing and appreciating markets.

Not to say that you should go with STRs. Just saying that it's an idea if you do your homework, build your systems, network with people already doing it, are willing to invest some hand-on time while you learn the space, and get a but lucky (regardless of how prepared we are, luck is always a factors in anything we do, isn't it?)

Fast forward to the end result (well 5+ years later), and looking at my portfolio of assets now, and I feel very comfortable in how diversified I am. The troubles in the stock market that impact my retirement accounts so far this year haven't been fun, but they certainly have not been devastating because my real estate is acting as a counterbalance. I wish I had figured this out a few years earlier. But I've doubled my annual income in that period without relying on raises from my W-2. And now we have a ton of tax benefits from the investments.

Hey Tim - a couple options:

We have a Facebook group and an Email Newsletter, the most recent edition being this one.

Whenever we post a new event, we post here and on Eventbrite. We try to host one every 5-6 weeks.

Feel free to message me if you have any questions!

I know a ton of people haven't RSVP'ed here yet, but on Eventbrite and Meetup, we're up over 50 RSVPs. So, won't you join us for a few adult beverages and some great real estate and investing chatter, and meet a few new people!

Network to Grow Your Net Worth is back, and we're hosting our next Financial Independence Through Real Estate networking event at Coppersmith in Southie.

Join us for a drink or two and meet some new faces!

Last month, our return to in-person networking was a smashing success.

Lots of excellent conversations lasting well past our original end time!

About 60-70 people attended, and there was plenty of space to mingle and hop from one discussion to the next.

Nobody will be pitching anything - no speakers either! Just a fun evening of networking, chatting real estate and financial independence with other investors, contractors, developers, and agents - all are welcome!

RSVP here or at Eventbrite -> https://www.eventbrite.com/e/b...

We're taking over part of the downstairs bar space. No hotel-style seminar seating or getting stuck at a table with strangers!

Network to Grow Your Net Worth Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/521535932084098

Location info:

Coppersmith is a dynamic venue in Southie serving globally-influenced comfort food in an industrial warehouse that specialized in copper fabrication in the late 1890s.

The vintage space is outfitted with reclaimed steel, restored brick, exposed timbers, exotic woods, multiple atrium skylights, open windows and glass garage doors that together impart a bright sense of comfort and warmth against Coppersmith’s industrial feel.

Parking / Train

Easy walk from the MBTA Red Line stop at Broadway (5 minutes). Commuter Rail to South Station, then walk across the Fort Point channel up A Street (18 minutes).

Parking - street spots available along Broadway and some of the neighboring streets. Channel Center Garage offers $8 parking Mon-Fri after 6pm and is only a 4 minute walk.

You can reply to the event here on Bigger Pockets or on Eventbrite

We also encourage you to join the Network To Grow Your Net Worth group on Facebook for updates on future events and connect with fellow attendees!