All Forum Posts by: Shawn McCormick

@Paul Dalton Welcome and congrats on taking the steps to invest in yourself! I serve on the board of our local REIA (Central Florida Realty Investors, CFRI) and this would be a great place for you to network with other local investors. We have about 20 meetings per month on a variety of topics including flipping, investing 101, landlording, multi-family, advanced investors etc.

Happy to get you a guest pass if you are interested and also be a resource as a Realtor if you need. 

Best of luck!

Equity-title in Lakeland is fantastic, ask for Sue, they close anywhere in the state.

RTR title ask for Laura Hope Richards

 Send me your email and I can give a link to sign up. 

@Richard Lopez Welcome! A great place to get started would be checking out the local REIA. I am on the board at CFRI (Central Florida Realty Investors), the local chapter to the national REIA and one of the largest in the country.

We have about 20 meetings a month on a variety of topics from beginners to multi-family to flipping. Everyone there are volunteers and most are local to Orlando. We cover 6 counties in Central Florida, so you'll have plenty of networking opportunities with other local investors and all types of business members that offer every service you could need. 

If you are interested in coming out, I can send out a guest pass. 

Best of luck to you. 

Welcome @Katie Nolan. I would look into joining your local REIA, you can't beat in person networking and knowledge to the area that you are looking to invest in. This community is fantastic too, soak it all in!

Best of luck!

@Vin Gupta Insurance is an issue state wide, not just Orlando. When purchasing, things that will amplify rates are roofs that have less than 10 years life, old water heaters, flood zones etc. Relief is coming, but just not fast enough. More carriers are being approved to come into the state and the competition should help ease rates.

The overall MSA market is still doing well. Inventory has jumped over 50% from a year ago, but values continue to rise at almost 3%. So, things are taking longer to sell because we have more homes on the market, but prices/values are still high. You can find motivated sellers and still get some deals. 

Let me know if you need more info. Best of luck!

@Ricky M. I'm biased and can provide reasons and data to show that using an agent will protect you, get you more money, less stress and so on.

The reality is you can do it yourself, but tenants generally don't cooperate with showings and that causes lots of problems for buyer to access the unit to show, inspections, appraisals etc. If the lease is at market rents and the unit is in great shape, it could be attractive to another investor. Every investor wants a 'deal', so you need to provide your lease and p&l to show them exactly what they are getting upfront to evaluate the property. If it doesn't cash flow, having the tenant in place doesn't do you much good, do you self manage?. Did you lease it fully furnished? What community is it in? I do a lot of business near the parks with STR and I know the HOA fees can make it really difficult to make the numbers work. Will you seller finance or let someone take it sub2, that could make the difference to attract an investor.

Best of luck!

@Lauren H. This is not legal advice in any way, but I hold my properties (flips, rentals..everything) in Land Trusts and have my LLC be the beneficiary of the trust. Land trusts aren't really for protection, but anonymity and then the LLC provides the protection (to some degree, depending on what happens). There are some nuances you'll want to consider before using them like if you refi the house, you may have a hard time finding a lender to refi with a trust as the owner etc. But still worth it.

I'm in Orlando and have a couple great contacts here that I personally use, not sure if they can operate in Delaware, but happy to provide their info. I have properties out of state and it works for me.

Best of luck

 Thank you @Michael Baum. Hi @Saulo Dias. I think eveyone has hit the major points of answering your question. I'll answer from a consumer point first. Honestly, I've only booked a STR a dozen or so times. Most often it was out of need for a specific location and space, so I first concentrate on the location, then #beds (typically), once I've narrowed it down, then I go to budget. Now I've got my choices down to just a few at which point I'll look at reviews, but the usually I don't have a lot of choices so even with a couple of bad reviews, I will likely still book and set my expectations accordingly.

From a real estate investor perspective, I think it will depend on where you are and how much competition you have in that market. What is the draw (seasonal vacation, business, sports, beach, mountains etc) who is your renter avatar? If it is highly compeitive like my market of Orlando, guests have thousands of homes to choose from, so they will filter differently than someone that is going to Ft. Wayne Indiana for a funeral and just need a place to stay that is convenient and cost effective and doesn't care about amenities and such. Here in Orlando, for the most part, the home HAS to be stellar to attract the guest that isn't shopping by price first, but the experience. 

You have to know your market competition from every angle (price, offerings, perks, marketing, quality of furniture, neighborhood etc) You can overcome negative reviews if you do a lot of volume, that is almost a given to not be able to make everyone happy or foresee every issue a guest may have. However, do not use that as a strategy or be okay with it, you'll wind up losing the battle.

Hope this helps, reach out if you want to talk more about Orlando. Best of luck

I have two local contacts for you Bell-Harding (HBI) is a local high level CPA specializing in Foreign investors and these scenarios.

Another would be Daniel Boyd a local cost-seg specialist 407-451-8996

Best of luck