All Forum Posts by: Kaylyn Geiger

@Nikki Cepeda Happy to share! We ended up going the STR route. Fitchburg does have some limitations. You can only rent your place for 183 days out of the year, which still gets us far more monthly than our LTR. It has to be your primary residence and of course you need licensing for the city and health department. If a stay is longer than 6 days (If I'm remembering correctly), it's not counted as a STR thus it doesn't impact your total days booked.

We started in December and have been booked essentially every weekend. Our longest stay was 37 days—a family who needed somewhere to stay between selling their home in TX completing their new home in the area. Otherwise lots of people coming for university tours, conventions at Alliant, events at The Kohl Center and concert venues like the Sylvee. 

We charge between $198 and $278/night for a 3 bed 2 full bath half duplex. It sleeps 7 in total. We do have a discounted monthly rate of $3,200 for the longer term people which we've had a few inquiries outside of the one we had booked but haven't been able to accommodate because of other shorter term bookings. 

Our plan is to finish out the year and then determine whether or not we want to continue STR or dabble more with MTRs. Right now we are doing all cleaning and management ourselves so we're weighing out whether or not the amount we're earning is worth the hassle. We do get weekly inquires from Furnished Finder as we started to create an account but never finished. Not sure if it's more of a marketing tactic or there is actually that much demand.

Wish I had more insight on MTRs but hopefully knowing the demographics we've attracted this far can help inform some of your decisions. 

Kaylyn

Yeah there's not a lot of info/data out there on the Madison area. I think the closer to hospitals, the university and/or big corporations the better, yet outside of the party/student zone of downtown. However, I think as long as you're within a 5-10 miles radius of all of that there will be some demand. My situation is a bit different as I'm not seeking to purchase a property but to rent out one in Fitchburg that's already owned so hoping to make that work. It's a 15 minute drive to downtown, and a 10ish minute drive to Epic, which I'm thinking will be the main draws. 

Hi all, 

Curious if anyone has experience with mid-term rentals in the Madison area. Well I'm technically in Fitchburg. I know Madison has pretty tough regulations on short term rentals so thinking this may be the way to go. My thought is there may be some adequate appeal here being a college town with some major corporations and hospitals thus, lots of potential with students, professors, corporate staff, nurses, etc. 

I know Fitchburg does not require permitting for rentals over 28 days. Regardless of area, I'm curious if it'd be better to rent 30+ day stays over rental sites like Air Bnb or just have the tenants sign a month-month lease. I've also heard about Furnished Finder and getting connected with local Facebook groups. Are there any other methods you use? Another idea is to get connected with real estate brokerages (my own included) for people who are in transition periods between homes. 

Any feedback is appreciated!

 Thanks John. What would be some criteria you would be selective about?

Hey all you smart investors out there. My boyfriend and I have been looking into long term vs. short term rentals for the last year now and have recently started to lean towards short term. We currently house hack the duplex we live in but don't have any other investment properties. We've recently come across a few good potential STR's location-wise but are hesitant with all the talk of a recession. Obviously STR's are tailored towards people who likely have some extra money to vacation in the first place. Would it be foolish to get into STR's now especially as new investors without a big portfolio to fall back on?

Tell me whatcha think! :)

Definitely. I think the benefit of being a licensee is the opportunity to make a connection and if they aren't interested in taking our offer, I could certainly give them the option to list instead and see what the market can bring them. 

Hi all,

Kaylyn here. I am coming up on my first year as a Realtor in the Madison WI area. My boyfriend house hacked the duplex we live in now and is looking to add more to his investment portfolio. We've been searching mainly on-market deals for the past 10 months and have had no luck. 1.) the numbers don't necessarily make sense for him and 2.) there is so much competition, it's nearly impossible to get a deal. 

I've been using Bigger Pockets to educate myself on real estate investing and have started to look into off market properties in our area. I understand how to analyze if a property will work for us but when it comes to actually writing and presenting an offer, I'm not sure where to start. I've written to a number of owners and in the event that someone actually gets back to me, I'm not entirely sure where to go from there. How do I come up with a purchase price to offer them? Would it be silly to ask for a tour of the inside? Basically, how do I not sound like a dumba**?  Obviously, as a Realtor, I can determine what the market value is but we're hoping to find something under market value. We aren't big fish that can come in with an all cash, no contingencies offer at this point. We could waive inspection but we would at least have financing, thus, an appraisal contingency. 

Any suggestions or investors in the Madison area that has experience with this?