All Forum Posts by: John Carbone
John Carbone has started 38 posts and replied 1080 times.
Post: ...and yet ABNB stock is climbing?
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Quote from @John Underwood:
Quote from @Collin Hays:
ABNB is trading at a very expensive 34 X earnings right now. In what world do they meet earnings expectations on August 5? I'm normally not a trader, but I bought ABNB August 15 PUTS today.
Post: Smokies "hiney showing" thread
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Quote from @Matt Mertz:
Quote from @John Carbone:
A few days ago it was looking pretty decent, but then we had a guest cancel a 7 night stay in June due to a medical emergency.
2024: June 26%, July 58%.
2023: June 70%, July 51%
We donated a 3 night weekend to Isaiah House for a fund raising raffle so I didn't include them in the June 2024 numbers. And we gave a few nights to a friend in July 2023.
We're in this weird place where we were doing better this year than last until May rolled around. We're not panicking or anything. It's just "will we be able to retire early or not?"
Would you say that revenue for June and July is similar to last year or down assuming you didn’t have the cancellation?
I’m hearing from a lot of people that they have a bottom line number before they will just let it sit. If there are enough hold outs, new construction may become non existent and it may just be a few years of poorer performance. The long run will play out very well but it’s going to take some medicine to get to the other end.
Post: Have you done a risk management walk-thru of your Smokies cabin?
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I started using handy central for my cabins. The service has been excellent and I just had two items fixed that saved me a lot of money, one with a septic tank being clogged and some mold issues in a crawl space, saved a lot of money compared to other companies as well.
Post: Smokies "hiney showing" thread
- Rental Property Investor
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Quote from @Matt Mertz:
Quote from @Jay Hinrichs:
Post: Smokies "hiney showing" thread
- Rental Property Investor
- Gatlinburg
- Posts 1,091
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Quote from @Collin Hays:
Post: Smokies "hiney showing" thread
- Rental Property Investor
- Gatlinburg
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Quote from @Collin Hays:
Someone paid $1.2 million for this in 2022. A most grievous error.
Unable to sell on MLS, now going to auction with no reserve. It might bring $750K, which would still be too much.
Update….the no reserve auction completed and the property sold for $505k. After commissions and everything these people took a 700-800k loss in under two years.
my guess is this was bought for 1.2 mil as a 1031 exchange “to save taxes” these people got in over their heads and needed to liquidate for quick cash to cover debt on another investment. Pretty soon these will be happening with bank owned properties again, and expect the same 50-70 percent haircuts to a bidder as that is the actual true market value right now.
all price appreciation since 2020 has been wiped out of this market, it’s just going to take some time to work its way through the system. Logically this makes sense too, revenues are starting to reflect 2019 rental numbers and cost to borrow is higher than 2019 as well.
Hopefully the people who bought in 2020-2023 get wiped out and liquidated quickly and builders can go bankrupt and then we can get the market back to normalcy quickly. The faster stuff like this happens the better off for the long term and less new supply will come to market.
Post: Smokies "hiney showing" thread
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Quote from @Ken Boone:
Quote from @John Carbone:
also the pool cabin pumpers during Covid did exceptionally well when kids were doing school from home and there was a lot of demand year round for pools in off peak times…now those pool cabins sit empty because kids are in school and people aren’t willing to pay a premium to stay so the place sits unoccupied. All of this was very predictable, but unfortunately only a few here were able to see this 2-4 years ago. A memorable reply I recall from a pumper here back then was “I wont let you rain on my parade” … well now it’s a tsunami coming inland and it doesn’t care about your feelings.
The pool is the top amenity - not the view that gets preached so much. So in times like this I am so glad I have pool cabins. But because I bought right and didn’t fall into the frenzy and pay through the roof for my pool cabins I’m still doing well and making money. Not 2021-2022 money but more like 2019 money.
So buying the pool cabin was not a bad thing at all. In fact it’s probably one of the smartest things I did. But buying them at 2021-2023 prices would have been very tough.
What is your occupancy like for May on the pool cabins?
Post: Smokies "hiney showing" thread
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Drove around downtown gatlinburg to look at some “premier” new construction properties that are for sale. These things are all stacked up on the same block and look absolutely awful, nothing close that resembles this market. But….if you’re willing to pay 2x or more of what it’s worth…they are advertising “owner financing” as shown below…no appraisal needed! If anyone wishes to engage in these owner financing “deals” try to get a negative interest rate from them 😂
This one looks like an oversized garage with a loft on top
Post: Build or not to build
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Quote from @Kyle Smith:
Thanks for all the great responses. Well, I have about $180k in cash and I’ve been trying to buy a big view lot. I’ve missed a few opportunities due to “paralysis by analysis” but I’m still looking. My 3 bed pool cabin is doing pretty well, although my rates have dropped 20% or more since March. Someone mentioned we are at 2016 occupancies. I was think we were closer to 2019 occupancies but I wasn’t in the business back then. Are we seeing 2016 numbers right now? If the economy doesn’t turn around, I would imagine things will get worse with rising saturation in this market.
However, maybe all of my bad luck finding decent land under $300k may be a sign (Note, nice plots of land with big views near PF/Gat are selling for $250k and they are under contract in a matter of hours). I’m unsure who’s buying these big view lots but I can tell you they are getting scarce. How can you make the math work spending $250k for the land? I’ve been looking for land around the $150k mark for 9 months and have come up empty handed. I’ve been under contract probably 5 times now, and every lot I get under contract on has some sort of issue. Maybe I should take the hint and take my money elsewhere.
Post: Smokies "hiney showing" thread
- Rental Property Investor
- Gatlinburg
- Posts 1,091
- Votes 957
Quote from @Ken Boone:
Quote from @John Carbone:
also the pool cabin pumpers during Covid did exceptionally well when kids were doing school from home and there was a lot of demand year round for pools in off peak times…now those pool cabins sit empty because kids are in school and people aren’t willing to pay a premium to stay so the place sits unoccupied. All of this was very predictable, but unfortunately only a few here were able to see this 2-4 years ago. A memorable reply I recall from a pumper here back then was “I wont let you rain on my parade” … well now it’s a tsunami coming inland and it doesn’t care about your feelings.
The pool is the top amenity - not the view that gets preached so much. So in times like this I am so glad I have pool cabins. But because I bought right and didn’t fall into the frenzy and pay through the roof for my pool cabins I’m still doing well and making money. Not 2021-2022 money but more like 2019 money.
So buying the pool cabin was not a bad thing at all. In fact it’s probably one of the smartest things I did. But buying them at 2021-2023 prices would have been very tough.
I think this makes sense and my comment was more geared towards the mansion cabins with pools that need to rent for $500+ a night when there is no demand for that 7 months of the year (except during Covid). They need to drop probably down to $250 but they can’t/wont do that and the cleaning fees and cost to operate the pools prevents them from doing so. There are always exceptions to the rule, but most people on here bought during Covid and a lot of pool cabins (big ones) have been empty most of the season except during spring break.