All Forum Posts by: Michelle Bateman

Kansas City is growing in popularity due to it's sports, entertainment, and culture. Just recently their professional football team won the 2022 Superbowl. In a few years the world cup will be visiting KC  followed by hundreds of thousands of tourists to see the first US world cup. 

With many visitors coming to KC for short periods of time the demand for STR/AirBnB has grown significantly over the past decade. Especially when most of the events are not located downtown near hotels. STR offer a great way to pay down mortgage on properties that the owner wants to hold for long periods of time without having to find a trusting tenant.

Overall, short-term rentals can offer a lucrative investment opportunity for property owners, while also benefiting the wider community.

Contact your local KC real estate investment agent to find deals in the area and get your portfolio growing!

Hi all,

My team just listed a quadruplex. It is listed at $625k, we estimate total market rent to be $6500/m. If you are a buyer please reach out to me using the info in the link provided. If you are an agent (nationwide) we would love to pay a referral if you have a buyer. 

We estimate an 8% cap rate. Until the owner decided to sell it had been 100% rented (undervalue) for years. The remaining tenant will be out this month. It is rentable as is or can be improved for a higher return. Please reach out to me directly using the info in the link below.

Here is the info

So I get an email this evening from my pals at ABNB. They say "your listing is at risk of suspension or removal"......What the heck? I'm a long-time Superhost with an overall 4.87 rating here, 5.0 at our other place.

So reading further, they say "Your listing has received 2 recent low ratings, or had other issues, like cancellations."

I click the link to see what is going on.....there are no recent low ratings at all. The single review that they reference is from a year ago, from a guest who commented that our place was 'super cute, but not suitable for children'. Which it clearly says in the listing details. And this guest gave us a 5 Star review! So not a low rating, but a 5 star review!

And the cancellation? It was a cancellation THAT THEY DID at my request, in which I clearly requested that they make sure that the cancellation was not on me.

So I think I am done with these clowns. This is not the first incident like this with them, but rather the 3rd or 4th.....

I will rely on VRBO and my private bookings, and those will probably be enough. If not, I'll just go to LTR or sell and move on to another RE investment vehicle.

Thanks, AIR....

Good morning all!

I was having a conversation with another investor a few days ago regarding short term rental occupancies and rates. In some areas right now it appears that bookings are "down", at least compared to the height of COVID, and as a result some owners in those areas are dropping their nightly/weekly rates to try to counteract it. 

So my question is this: as an owner, at what point would you rather have vacancies than low-priced bookings? The gist of the conversation went something along the lines of "Well, it's always better to have some money coming in than nothing coming in" versus "I'd rather have vacancies than give my property away in a race to the bottom and get low-paying customers who are wearing my unit out at the same time". 

As an example: let's say nightly booking rates have been averaging $200 per night where you are. How low would you be willing to go before you'd just leave the unit vacant - $150 per night? $100? $50? 

I thought it was an interesting topic because I've had this same discussion on long-term rentals (my forte), and I might be willing to go 10% below my current market rates on my LTRs if I had to in order to get them rented, but if things went bad enough that I was looking at 20-30-40% drops in rates I'd probably just cash out at that point. But STRs work on much smaller timelines so it may not be the same dynamic there.

Thoughts?

Thanks for the update. Another reason why regional, drivable vacation markets are the way to go 

It is crazy! Curious of the suburbs will follow suit. 

Zoinks!

Thanks for posting @Michelle Bateman. There was a topic that came up a few weeks ago where someone had KC on their radar and others had chimed in that this has been on deck for a while.

Yet another large city restricting STRs. So what neighborhoods around KC aren't affected?

Of course I would be wary of any and all neighborhoods nearby as this sort of thing is like a cancer that spreads.