All Forum Posts by: Mandy Ellett

I don't own a STR yet, but my husband and I have 5 kids and love to travel. Consequently we've stayed in a lot of STRs. We don't always get charged extra, but we often do. I generally expect to be charged extra for each person after the first 2, and am pleasantly surprised when they don't.

As far as sleeping arrangements go,  Lots of places have a futon in the livingroom or a couch that turns into a bed so they can sleep 2 more people.  In fact, we've had that more often than not. 

Personally, it doesn't bother me if my kids sleep on a futon or sofa bed,  but if I had to pay extra for 7 people and then they gave us air mattresses I'd be a little annoyed. 

I think the best use of space I've seen was a 1bdrm 1 bath we stayed in for a week an hour or so north of Seattle.  The listing was on VRBO. They had 2 futons in the livingroom that folded out into beds,  then they had built a kind of "L" shaped wall out of recycled doors (it actually looked pretty cool) and put a bunk bed that was a full on bottom and a twin on top on the other side of it.  Then there was the actual bedroom with a queen bed in it.  Technically that place could have slept 9 - 9 might have felt a tad crowded, but we were very comfortable for a week with 7 people.

Generally speaking I'm for it,  but it depends on alot of factors (like location, cost,  etc) as to whether or not it's a profitable venture. 

You should definitely look in to it. We have used it once to fund a deal. At first I was really hesitant to touch it since it was money for retirement, but we are paying it back in less than 5 years and it made it possible to fund a good deal that will still be cash flowing money to us when we retire. 

Have you been contributing to TSP? If you have money in there, you can look in to a TSP loan. That's a great way to help fund a deal.

My ex sister-in-law rents out a room in her home.  When her daughter (my niece) was 19yo and living with her she would leave for extended amounts of time and leave the AirBnb'ing up to my niece (don't get me started on how I felt about her letting strangers stay alone in the house with my super cute and bubbly 19yo niece).  My niece told me that most of the time it was fun and she enjoyed meeting new people and what not.  However, one time a guy was doing meth in the house (while only my niece was there) and she had to call the police.  She also said there were a few times the people gave off really bad vibes and she wouldn't be able to sleep at night because she was so nervous and the flimsy little lock on her door wouldn't stop anyone who was truly motivated.

@Villy Ellinger, I would love to know how this turns out.  It's an option we may want to explore in the future.  If you are comfortable with it, would you mind posting how it goes and what you ended up doing?  Thanks!!

We originally bought ours to live in,  it wasn't in an area with good rental potential compared to the surrounding areas.  We tried renting it out for year,  lost money on it,  got scared and sold it.  Where we went to college there were some great areas for rentals with small multi-family units, but that never even occurred to us as something we could do. 

17 years later we look back and wish we would have had bought a property based on it's investment potential. I actually thinkwe would have learned more about "landlording" by house hacking a small multi family, being there in the trenches on a day to day basis,  than we did by renting out our sfh from a distance. It certainly would have been a better investment in the long run.

Buy a small multi-family instead of the terrible sfh we bought in college.

@Nghi Le, this is our first one - it may or may not be longer than a half hour, I just can't guarantee it, lol. We've got 5 or 6 people coming, I think it'll be worth your time. :D

BP members in/around UW campus in Seattle - we're starting a very informal meet up, with the first event this Thursday, 12APR18, at the UW HUB Starbucks.

Come on in, introduce yourself, and get to know others at UW who are interested in real estate. Very low key! Bring ideas and questions, or even some jokes to rival @scotttrench.

See you there!