All Forum Posts by: Jefferson Brown

Hey Alexis!

I'm in Pleasant Grove!  Our properties are in Florida and we manage them remotely.  Utah valley hasn't popped up in our profitability analysis before but if you're looking to estimate revenue I recommend going to Pricelabs and buying one of their market dashboards.  Its $9.99 for a month of data and it can estimate pretty well how much revenue each size of home makes.  Just cancel it after one month and its totally worth the investment.  Happy researching!

Jeff

Hey Anand!  We have 8 in Florida and we're seeing the same thing.  I don't expect this to be long term.  I think people are just waiting to see what policy changes are made as they are worried about having to cancel and losing money.  Hang in there!

Hi Ceaneh!

We don't invest in Atlanta but we do invest remotely (we have 8 in Florida, but we live in Utah).  I would recommend using Pricelabs market dashboards to pull data for the area you are looking at.  That will tell you what kind of revenue you can expect to achieve based on the size of home you are looking to buy.

To your question about multi-family units I do believe this presents an advantage to you for two reasons:

1) You can "nest" your listings - this means that you can list each property individually AND create a listing for all of them together.  You can charge a premium for properties that have more bedrooms because they are in shorter supply.

2) You get a higher valuation - When you go to sell a multi-family unit, the bank (and the appraiser) is more likely to consider the rental income of the property in the overall valuation.  With a vacation rental, you could significantly increase the value of the property by renting it short term.

Hope that helps!

Hey Nathan!  We manage 8 properties remotely and I have to say its a good idea to have some kind of boots on the ground anyways.  We contract with a maintenance person for issues that come up (I highly recommend this). First get your maintenance guy/gal, then ask them if you can put them down as your local point of contact.

Hey Cody!

We recommend using Divvy.  Its a credit card system that links to an app so that you can assign credit cards to each employee with limits.  That way everyone that spends money gets a notification on their app which reminds them to take a picture of the receipt and categorize it immediately.  My partner raves about them and they are great if you're looking to scale.  It links right into Quickbooks.  Message me if you decide to use them because we get a referral fee if you decide to use them.

Good luck!

Originally posted by @Justin Knighten:

@Jefferson Brown

That's outstanding.  Sounds very similar to what I was thinking, just replacing a random person with family.  Even 10% for what I need sounds really high, the flat rate is appealing.  What kinds of stays are you getting in these properties?  We get a lot of 1 night stays, for around $150.  $20 per would be getting pretty pricy on those, but not so bad for the week long stays.  

@Justin Knighten

We don't go lower than two nights because most of our properties are larger (6+ bedroom) and attract the party crowds.  You're right that would be expensive for a one night stay.

Hey Michael!  I don't have any properties in that area specifically but we do manage 8 properties in Florida (we're in Utah) so I do know a little bit about managing a property remotely.  Id say you have two options

1.) Hire a company to do it for you - This will usually run you 20-30% of topline revenue (which is crazy in my opinion) and the quality of their customer service is rarely worth paying for.  Benefits though are that it is completely hands off.

2.) Hire a cleaning company and a maintenance company and manage inquiries yourself - This is what we do because it costs a fraction of the price and we feel like we can handle customer service issues better than most.  I have suggestions on how to hire out the customer service piece to so that it gets done right.  But Ill save that for another time if you're interested.

Good luck!

Hey Nick!  Look up Visio lending.  These guys actually specialize in short term rental lending and have the most flexibility for what you're trying to do.  Ask for Tracy.  I tried putting his email in here for you but BiggerPockets blocked it.

Hey Justin!  Just my two cents here but we just put up our 8th property in Florida (I live in Utah) and I might have some tips for you.  After 2 or 3 properties you really start to feel the tug of the inquiries on your personal life so we hired someone on Upwork and pay them $20 per booking to manage the inquiries and call the maintenance person when needed.  They speak perfect English and have phenomenal customer service skills.  Its really improved our business and allowed me to spend more time with my family.

I can't stand the thought of paying someone 20-30% of topline revenue to do this.  That could mean thousands of dollars per month for a single property and its just not worth that.  Let me know if you want some help in setting that up.

Perfect, thank you both!