All Forum Posts by: Jon Martin

If the cabinets look clean on the inside then I would just paint them and add some nice pulls. That faded blue jean or cornflower blue color is all the rage now. Nobody expects to see photos of the inside of your cabinets. Will save you a lot of time and money. 

Would probably do LVP over the floors. I wouldn't for a personal home but for a rental it's a no brainer. Counters look ok. New fixtures and shower door. 

Not sure about interior paint, tough to tell from photos. 

Trying to make booking for 2 nights business and 1 night pleasure next week. I was looking on VRBO so that I can burn up the last of my Hotels dot com rewards now that future accruals are at 20% of what they used to be. 

I've found a few places where the nightly rate are only $105 and $169, however the all in price is more than double the nightly rate. The lesser priced room has a total host fee that is over $400, and $169 has a host fee around $170. VRBO does not include a "?" icon next to it like it does for the service fee breakdown. Is the VRBO Host Fee basically the equivalent of the Cleaning Fee on Airbnb, and at the discretion of the host and for them to collect? 

Seems absurd to have a host fee that is higher than the cost of a 3 night booking and that most of that should be spread through the nightly rate. Or is this a way to get around VRBO charging their % markup and taxes? 

Hi All,

Found a property that would be a good fit. Any recommendations for 15% down investment loans that I will be able to refinance out of in a year or so without a penalty?

Thank you all in advance!

Agreed with suggestions above for HELOC with a quicker pay down. That way you only pay interest on what you borrow and only for how long whereas if you do a refi, you are stuck making larger interest payments up front for many years based on the entire balance.

Keep in mind that a lot of the cheaper hard furniture needs to be assembled. This is a huge time suck and what you think you save from the price you lose to your own time and headache, or what you pay someone else to build it for. This is especially true with nightstands and also drawers, bed frames etc. 

For my next STR I am specially selecting for easy to assemble furniture. You have enough to unbox already, don't make it harder on yourself.

I’m a big fan of used washers and dryers. All of the new electronics and keypads in newer units are solutions in search of a problem. Plus the water and energy saving features that end of hindering performance. I was trying to use my parents washer and there was no way to fill it up more if you wanted to give your clothes more space or let them soak, it had a sensor that decided how much water you can use. And this wasn’t even in California. 

There’s a character in my area (how could you not be if this is your business lol) who gets all the haulaways from a local appliance retailer and hooks them up for you. In 10 years I’ve replaced the Washer and Dryer from him one time each and spent around $1000 total, installed out the door. 

I do a front page AirBnb search for "flexible dates" and choose a random 2-3 day stretch for the city and with the same bedroom count. This should pull up basically everything because it will show all the listings that are normally booked.

Zoom in on the general area of the home you plan to buy. The home locations won't be exact because AirBnb offsets the exact location but it's close enough. Click on as many properties within a close radius as you can find. Then check their calendars and ADRs and note the quality of the listing. I also like to click on a few that are a bit further out away from the main attractions and use those as the conservative bottom end of the revenue scale. 

Should give you a good general idea. 

-Make sure the property is in a good location first and foremost; close to amenities/attractions; use google street view to make sure it is not on a super busy street, across the street or adjacent to a distressed property or low rent business etc (probably not an issue at your price point)

-Run the numbers with all the free tools mentioned; good idea to play around with subtracting a bathroom and bedroom within those searches to be sure there are no outliers skewing the data and to be more conservative at the low end of your estimations

-Check the comps for neighboring properties; how full are their calendars and at what price; also average review rating for location and what comments the guests are leaving about the area (safety, noise, proximity)

-Extra points for properties that are surrounded by more valuable homes; makes appreciation and profitable exit plan more likely 

-As for monthly bills, sometimes this is tough but by your 2nd property for the area you should have a decent idea. Just make sure you are accounting for all the various categories of bills you will have aside from the obvious utilities (lawn care, pool care, snow removal in cold areas, consumables, higher insurance cost etc)

Sounds like an epic set up with awesome amenities but my instinct is that if you want large groups, and they don't have their own RVs, that 3 bedrooms is a bit light. There is a big difference between the ADR on 4 bedrooms and up vs 3s in most markets. I agree that finishing out the basement would be the best move but you might want to see if you can partition off at least one more bedroom down there. Bare minimum have some pull out sofas. 

I've only had 1 VRBO guest and the payout was notably slower. A solid week+ after check out. Whereas with AirBnb they send the payment the day after check in and I usually have in my account a few days later.