All Forum Posts by: Kyle Westerman

Hello, I am looking for a lender who offers VA Renovation Loan. I need to update my master bathroom. Currently, I have a VA loan on home already. I bought property in Jan 2023 for 425k, put 20% down, and have done other improvement projects on it since. I doubt it won't appraise for less than 490k now. Please respond with your contact info and I'll reach out.

Thanks

Kyle

Awesome Post!  Thanks you for sharing.

Question, as I pay down the principal on the entitlement, does that me the entitlement goes down too?

your example of home bought 2 years ago now is at 315K in total principal due to pay down.  Does that mean you multiply entitlement used/entitlement guranttee = 315K * 25% = 78750

thanks all for the feedback!

Any way this forum can update/add a search bar so I don’t have to scroll thru hundreds of posts by selecting different pages? Appreciate the content on here but I’m not motivated enough to scroll more than a hundred pages to see if a question has been asked already….just saying

 income & appreciation. 

We manage one property now.  

Quote from @Chris Watson:

It is my opinion that the jolt in Smokies pricing showing a decrease is the return of pre-COVID occupancy with unseasoned investors (or forgetful investors) not knowing what normal was. So they screamed the sky is falling. Some panicked and started selling their property thinking values will be decimated and not wanting to lose even more.  June numbers just showed most this isn't the case, with a large percentage of owners showing an increase of income over June 2023 numbers. This does not include those who way over paid (not just overpaid).

I expect the next 6 months to be the prime time to pick up a few good deals for those who know what to look for and how to negotiate in this market and area.  Then I expect more stabilization in pricing and less concessions as the market will tighten as we get a 2nd rate cut in Q1 of 2025.

I wonder if the market will change now that the economy is signaling a recession. It seems like the fed will step in sooner and lower interest rates.  With Airbnb signalling lower returns this quarter and next, I wonder if there are better opportunities coming up at the beginning of next year. 

We bought our property back in January. Our goal is to buy a property a year so I thought it was a good idea to open a LLP to manage said properties.

recently we discussed this with an accountant and he said there weren’t tax benefits to this right now.   He said we’d have to do schedule k rather than schedule e. The property is a 2nd home for us. I planned to move it into LLP after a year due to Freddie Mac restrictions.

I've done my own research and seems the rates are worse then what I'd get as a 2nd home for LLP. I'm leaning towards getting rid of LLP we opened. We have the umbrella insurance to cover home based on the research from this forum. Right now I think it's a good idea so we can claim the rental revenue as income.

So I’m looking for advice from experienced investors. Please let me know your thoughts. 

Quick update…we ended up calling multiple times and got the review taken down. We did reach out to this guest before their stay and explained the area, which they said didn’t bother them. They had an excellent stay in the property but then they reported how terrible the area was and they were verbally assaulted on the street (not in the property). 

We couldn’t move on with it so after multiple cal to Airbnb they took it down because we told them about the area before hand. They gave us a 5 star but the comment she made about being verbally assaulted didn’t sit well with us. It worked out in the end and we’ve made some changes to our automatic messaging.

thanks for the advice! It definitely helped us game plan how to fix this.

Hello, this has been our first STR and we started in an upcoming urban area. I think we've done a good job updating our property and making the experience great, but I had two recent reviews that I don't want up. One customer said they were uncomfortable with the neighborhood and didn't like seeing the other home so close to ours. Another said they were verbally assaulted on the street away from our home; they still gave us 5 stars but the content posted is bad.

both aren’t in our control but Airbnb isn’t taking them down. we asked them to take down the 5 star because what she said in the review was awful, but they said it didn’t violate their policy. We are still at 4.85. She I keep trying to take it down? Avery’s books said keep calling.

We just bought our first short term rental in January and it’s breaking even right now. We’re in the summer season now so we expect it to get better but we put 30% down to stay conservative. 

I definitely have been learning a lot over the past few months self managing. We just had to fire our cleaning person for poor performance and it’s been tough being competitive with cleaning fees while finding good cleaners. 

We're definitely thinking long term with STR. Our goal is to buy another one next year but we'll see based on the market. This house is close to the beach so it's been a win since we get to spend time down there.

So it's definitely a numbers game and making it work for your strategy. You can stay conservative but know Airdna.co data changes overtime. Also review similar STR close to the property you want to buy to see what their charging and plan for 15 days occupied to determine your break even. That's what I did.