All Forum Posts by: Laura R.

From what I have seen in the travel nurses FB group, they are really only looking for a basic furnished 1 bedroom/studio type situation for a low price. They still have to pay the bills and mortgage at their permanent residence. I haven't read that much good feedback about Furnished Finder for anything other than the travel nurses. 

I'm interested to hear from anyone who is doing medium-term rentals through Airbnb AND requiring background/income verification/lease. Can you share your listing or explain how you are handling this? I've been creeping in a superhost group on FB and it seems like most of the property owners are regular individuals who are treating those bookings just like any other short term hotel stay. Airbnb seems to be the best platform to get those renters but it doesn't seem that compatible with the landlord/tenant law complexities that kick in after 30 days. 

@Carolyn Fuller I live out of state from the property and it is my first investment experience, that is why I am using a PM

@Colleen F. thanks for these tips 

Thanks for the feedback. I'm new to real estate investing in general so I'm trying to wrap my head around everything. 

The way I understand it (regardless of rental length), if I find tenants through a website like FurnishedFinder or social media, I need to make sure they are getting vetted/background checked and have the PM execute some sort of written lease agreement with them. Because there is no booking contract/protection through those websites. 

For STR rentals through Airbnb, the PM does not typically execute a lease agreement because that is all handled through the Airbnb booking contract and there is no background check. I've never signed anything when renting an Airbnb personally but I've also never rented for more than 30 days.

Is that how y'all are handling MTR through Airbnb as well or are you having them sign lease agreements too?

I'm just wondering because for the PM it would be more work to have to do new tenant screening and leases every few months and they wouldn't have that workload with a STR or LTR.

Here is another question for those of you managing MTRs, if I'm in NY state with strong tenant rights, would I get more protection by doing a 30+ day rental through Airbnb? Would my PM need to do a lease in that case or not?  I was thinking Airbnb plus PM fees would be a lot but it looks like Airbnb is only 3%? 

We are in the process of preparing a single family investment home for MTR in Buffalo, NY. We want to go this route for a few reasons. We live in Texas and want to be able to use the property as a second home for a month or two each year to escape the heat. The home is in a walkable popular part of town. 

Buffalo is a market where property managers and landlords seem reluctant to sign long term leases, most tenants seem to be on a month to month basis due to the difficulty of evicting. I'm concerned about condition of the home after a year lease and not being able to get in for maintenance and cleaning after seeing several investment properties there. 

There are a few Airbnbs and the city has regulations around less than 30 day rentals. So I'd like to stick with 30+ day rentals to avoid that headache. My goal would be 3-6 month rental periods, this would allow for fairly regular cleaning and maintenance and give us flexibility to use the home sometimes. 

I do have a property manager identified since we are out of state. It doesn't seem like that many people have experience with the MTR model in Buffalo so we are both trying to do some research on how to approach this. 

I would appreciate any tips on how you handle MTR with a property manager involved. I would prefer to list on sites like Furnished Finder/social media and avoid sites like Airbnb that take a % of the booking fee. Regular LTR PM fee is around 10% and STR PM is around 20%. So maybe 15% would be fair for MTR? We would be finding the tenants ourselves and PM should handle everything else ideally.

What kind of leases and security deposits do you do for MTR if they aren't booked through a site like Airbnb? Keeping in mind the tenant rights in Upstate NY. 

Thanks everyone. I talked to the closing attorney and they said just check with lender because some are totally OK with it. The lender confirmed they won't care if we move to LLC later as long as we make the payments on time.

Hello, I'm under contract on my first rental property located in Buffalo, NY. The property will be financed with a mortgage in my personal name. 

My understanding is that I will need to take title in my personal name to begin with to satisfy the mortgage requirements. However, I own another active full-time business that I want to keep totally separate from the rental activities. So just owning the property personally with an umbrella insurance doesn't sound like a great idea. I will be using a property manager since I'm out of state. 

I've read about the strategy of putting title into a land trust and then having the trust owned by an LLC. Has anyone done this successfully in Upstate New York? Should I be asking the attorney firm who is handling my closing to help me with this? Or should this all be kept secret from the bank and I should use a different attorney since they are all working together on the closing?

Thanks everyone for the advice! The lender is telling me it won't make much difference for an investment vs second home loan. I have heard several people in the area say that they had no issues transferring the loan afterwards. Does anyone have any experience with m&t bank in that situation?  

I'm looking for an updated/move-in ready duplex in the city, preferably in an up and coming, walkable area. Ideally around or under $250k. Hoping things might cool down a bit with the interest rate increase. That might be at odds with doing Airbnb, I'm assuming most would try to stick to either Elmwood Village or North Buffalo area for Airbnb purposes.

I'm hoping to get further in my attempts to purchase a vacant duplex home in City of Buffalo soon without being outbid. 

I'm thinking about renting 1 unit long term and keeping 1 unit open for personal use during late summer/fall. Sort of like a second home house hack. 

My first question is, how feasible would it be to Airbnb the personal unit the other months of the year when we aren't using it? I see there are some City registration requirements/fees and it doesn't look like there are a ton of Airbnbs in the city already. My goal would be for it to be quiet apartment stay and not a party house or nuisance, I would not want to disturb the long term tenants or neighbors. 

Second question, what is the best way to approach this from a mortgage perspective? I'm already pre-approved for a conventional investment loan and my intention was to create an LCC and transfer the deed after closing. I'm not sure if a second home loan would be any benefit in this scenario vs. an investment purchase loan? 

I'm out of state so I'm going to need a property manager. I'm not sure if any property management is doing both long term and Airbnb but I guess could go with two separate companies worst case. I would appreciate any recommendations. 

Thank you! 

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I agree with another poster above that at a minimum landlords should be tightening their requirements. I'm looking to buy my first investment property in Buffalo and I've been surprised at how many properties have tenants paying way below market rents with no security deposits. Definitely makes me hesitant to purchase a property with tenants in place.