Quote from @AJ Wong:
Quote from @Ryan Moyer:
"One is an oceanview estate on acreage with a remarkable architectural styling on the north coast projected to produce $230K+ at at asking price of $1.8Mish and another in house listing on the north coast asking $1.649M that should yield $180K+/- in gross annual income. The final prospect is a $2M+/- direct water access estate on the southern OR Coast that projects well at $180K+ in gross annual income."
These are terrible numbers, especially at current interest rates.
I know little about them but it seems like all marketing fluff. Floral prose to pretend like wholly average or even below average income/price ratios are some kind of special. The Peter Lik of property management.
Terrible? The majority of our investors are seeking a long term second home that covers costs and even these could be double digit COC returns if structured properly. They are the only ones that are eligible, I didn't say they were the most lucrative. If you don't know about them - research before commenting.
If the owner's goal is to have a second home that subsidizes some of the mortgage part-time, then sure—that might be fine. But if we're talking about STR investing from a return-on-capital standpoint, the numbers aren't compelling.
$180k gross on a $2M purchase isn’t just “middling”—it’s frankly poor. You don’t need standout marketing to generate that. Bill Faeth, for example, grossed $500k in his first year on a similarly priced home. That’s what “great at marketing” actually looks like.
If the claim is that Wander excels at marketing themselves to prospective owners, rather than marketing their properties to prospective guests, I’d agree. That’s where the Peter Lik / Monster Cable analogy fits—positioning average returns as premium experiences to people who might not know better.
I also looked into owner reports across Reddit and other forums, and there aren't many but they generally say the same thing: increased expenses, lower-than-expected bookings, and high upfront investment just to meet Wander’s standards.
Their Trustpilot page is also worth examining—27 reviews, all from one-month span, all from brand-new accounts with no other reviews. That’s not a coincidence. Combined with the fact that they’ve removed their Google reviews presence and now control all visible guest feedback on their own website (other than the obviously faked Trustpilot push they gave up on), it gives off a tightly managed PR strategy rather than organic transparency.
I’m not saying they can’t deliver a good guest experience—but from an owner/investor lens, there are multiple red flags worth serious due diligence. The math, the marketing, and the lack of organic third-party validation just don’t align with the kind of performance being sold here.