All Forum Posts by: Account Closed

There is a lot of good information on remote management for STRs in these forums. Find a channel manager you like such as smartbnb, yourporter, iGMS etc. Reach out to other owners in the area you’re purchasing in and try and get some contacts for your cleaner and handyman list. You can automate pretty much everything yourself instead of using a property manager and use that extra cash flow for more properties. Good luck!

Hey @Vince L. that post you are referring to is pretty old and was a question I asked other owners before I really did my homework. Like Luke said a lot has changed since then as well. What I wish someone would have told me back then is that the 50% rule is a terrible approach to analyze an STR. What I should have done is reached out to other owners individually and collected actual expense data from those willing to share which I have now. The better analysis to run on an STR in my opinion is COC return and you need more accurate data then a general 50% rule to do that. There's a reason why the smokies are so hot, and it's not because mom and pop want a vacation cabin. They are cash flowing machines.

You’ll be successful in any of the markets you are considering. Don’t get stuck over analyzing the numbers like I did in the beginning, you miss a lot of opportunities sitting on the bench. Best of luck to you!

@William Eric if you have any other questions about our market in the smokies feel free to reach out to me! Our team at the Short Term Shop will take care of you!

@Joe Miano Something not mentioned much is the increase in average daily rate STRs are charging in the smokies. We’ll see if it stays that way but @Luke Carl has been touching on this some. Pull the trigger 

@Anand S. @Alan Ford I have to disagree with that statement that covid is what is pushing our numbers to new records. Go pull up the national park visitor numbers for the smokies and look at the trend. They’ve been setting new records year after year, it’s impressive they’ll set a new record this year even with shutdowns and mask mandates. The smokies get the most visitors out of all the national parks in the US, it’s around 14.5 million so far this year, the second most visited national park is the Grand Canyon and they get half the visitors we get. People love it here the numbers don’t lie!

@Julie McCoy I like your point there! I'm under contract for our first cabin and just over the last month prices have gone up quite a bit and they seem to keep creeping up. I had the same fear that the market could bust at any moment, but then I went and looked at the number of visitors the smokies have received this year and they are about to set a new record for total visitors even with covid so that helped lessen the fear. Like you said too, ran my numbers even with prices climbing and you still can't beat the return on investment. I think a lot of out of state buyers don't look at the full picture of this market. Our property taxes are low compared to most other STR markets, lots of places with no HOA fees or HOA fees that are pretty low, and the overall cost of operating an STR here is affordable. If you look at one bedrooms going for 300k right now some people are sticker shocked, then you run the numbers and it all still works really well from an investment standpoint. I am hoping interest rates stay low at least until June when I close lol. But like you said when the cabin prices reach a point that the return on investment starts matching other STR markets and the attention isn't so heavy on the smokies than we may see cabin prices level out. Very thankful for the short term shop team, Gennifer has dealt with my impatience way better than most people would haha. @Avery Carl thanks for the new build opportunity! We’re so excited for our first cabin! @Luke Carl had me reading all kinds of books the beginning of this year and then I slacked off because I hate reading, but the cabins never left my mind so I kept digging and here we are. First cabin at 26! One step closer to our freedom goal! Y’all have a rockstar team!

@Mike Anderson @Joshua Strickland I would have to agree that’s one of my concerns as well, but as the realtor put it sellers are more willing to negotiate on prices right now so you can probably get a little better deal. Start now and crawl through the slow season with a better deal when buying or wait and pay asking but not have to crawl for a couple months, tough decision lol. It definitely would be interesting trying to start off in slow season.

@Steve Cook The inventory hasn’t really been increasing all that much that I’ve seen, not at my price point anyways. I haven’t had a single cabin hit the market in my price range that was in a desirable location in the past two weeks, and the ones that have been in desirable locations that are for sale have been owned by management companies so you can’t even manage them yourself so those are automatically out for me. I’m sure one will pop up soon but it’s just a matter of getting in another bidding war and hoping for the best which isn’t ideal! But it does show how good the rental market is here! The good thing is that since they are in different markets I could take advantage of the vacation home loan twice! Woohoo!

Thanks @Joey Morea I hadn’t thought of it from the perspective of less overall maintenance to worry about. Great point. What is your strategy for slow season?

@Brittney WIlliams I've talked to some other condo owners in PCB that I reached out to on Airbnb and they are also performing well. The HOA for the unit I'm looking at which is a 2bdr plus bunk is $2,600 quarterly, seems so high to me but includes everything but electricity. From talking to another owner at the same resort with same floor plan they gross 45 to 55k a year.

@Avery Carl I’m working with your team in both places hoping to make a smart move!

Hey everyone! I finally have the cash to make a move on my first investment property and am ready to get into the game but I need some advice! 
I live an hour away from the smoky mountains and have always wanted to own a cabin there, and as everyone knows it's a super hot place to try and buy in right now. I have already been outbid on one cabin that fell in my price range and since then there hasn't been a single cabin to hit the market in my price range. So I started looking in the Panama City Beach area and there is more on the market in my price range and the gross revenue I can generate seems to be close to what a cabin would generate. Only thing I haven't been able to nail down is the expenses for a condo in PCB. HOA includes a lot of utilities and cable/internet but not electricity. It seems the "operating costs" for a unit in PCB is going to cut into a decent chunk of my gross unlike a cabin would. Higher property taxes and hurricane insurance doesn't help either.
Should I keep bidding on cabins in hopes of landing one even though inventory is so low and the opportunities popping up are few and far between, or should I go ahead and put my money to work in PCB even though it’ll be a lower return? Love that the cabin would be close to home so I can do some of my own maintenance and wife could go clean it in a pinch if it was ever needed. I’d love to hear from some PCB owners on their experience! Thanks everyone!

@Avery Carl Thanks for tagging, now it’s working!

@Parker Borofsky Definitely not trying to commit any fraud lol. I’ll have money to put down  from the sell of our home and another property I have inherited, I was just wondering what the best loan option would be in case living in an RV doesn’t go well and I need to get another primary mortgage loan while still having a cabin loan. Thank you for your help!