All Forum Posts by: Ryan Moyer

Sucks for us, but host cancelations are clearly a big problem people are running into.  I'm in a bunch of Disney groups and any time someone mentions staying offsite at an Airbnb there are a bunch of people that comment they had an Airbnb host cancel on them and leave them hanging, or know someone that had that happen, and how they would never stay in one.

I think you still have a window to cancel after an instant booking for "don't feel comfortable" and then after that window you have to have a valid reason.

Turn-key with a management company?  Cash flow will likely be zero.

The STR secret is out. If you want good cashflow you need to be looking at value-add and/or self-management.

There are still places out there where I'm sure you can cashflow with turn-key and a PM, but it's not going to be a big return.

You didn't answer the real question most of us have. Why is your name Katelyn Tarr but you signed it Elizabeth Sickles but your LLC is Elizabeth Moara? How many names do you have?

Honestly we were screwed long before that.

The fed lost its way.  They allowed political pressures to dictate what was supposed to be acting as an apolitical entity into violating its mandate.

The feds mandate involves inflation and unemployment.  It does not involve the stock market.  Yet they dictated policy from 2018-2021 based solely on the stock market, at the expense of inflation.

In 2018 the fed cut rates as was necessary.  They had already been too low for too long.  The stock market dropped 28% over the course of half a year, they got tons of pushback from politicians who cared only about how things made them look and not the long-term health of the economy, and they were strong-armed into stupidly slashing rates again in 2019 even though inflation and unemployment were perfectly healthy, just to make the stock market look good as an election approached.  

Then covid hit, the market tanked again, and the fed once again put the markets first.  Only this time, because they foolishly already had rates extremely low for no real reason, they didn't even have that tool to work with.  So we got UNLIMITED QE.  The promise to literally print unlimited money to prop up markets on top of an already overheated economy.  And people act shocked that inflation was the result.  Slash rates to near zero for no reason, print unlimited money, gee where is this inflation coming from? 

This is why I've posted probably a dozen times in this forum over the last 18 months that the fed is going to keep rates higher for WAY longer than people are expecting.  Many people were expecting them to start cutting rates again months ago.  A year ago, for some people.  Crazy.  The fed learned their lesson from 2019 and 2020, and if anything they have a tendency to overreact to past mistakes.

And it's been working.  The US is way ahead of the rest of the western world in curbing inflation, yet home prices haven't collapsed.  The markets, with political forces acting appropriately this time and letting the fed act on their own accord instead of panicking, have had a decent recovery.  There's no reason for them to start cutting rates any time soon.  And they won't until absolutely necessary this time.

Seems like a brutal market at current prices.  Even Bill Faeth couldn't make it work there and listed his place at a loss.

I don't always spend $80K with strangers on the internet from across the world, but when I do it's with a member that has only 11 posts, all of which are them trying to advertise.

No wait, that's not right.

Not to put a damper on things, but there's no room for sugar coating it when you're thinking about picking up $1M in debt, so I'll just say that honestly sounds like a terrible deal to me personally, unless you think you can heavily outperform their revenue numbers.

Annual revenue of 10% of purchase price is pretty much the very low end of the barometer for STR. Most people shoot for a good bit higher. And that's a barometer that was set even before rates went way up, so it gets even harder to justify now.

But at least in those cases you were getting a solid appreciating asset on a foundation.  In this case you're basically just buying the revenue, and it's not very impressive revenue relative to the purchase price.

Financing is going to be very difficult on something like that (and likely even more expensive than normal) to boot.

There's just no way anyone knows, and even moreso, no way you should believe that random people on an internet forum do.  There are people that make a lot of money to make this predictions and even they can't figure it out, so a bunch of randos on BP are all just guessing, as is anyone else.

The one thing I'll say is the American economy has proven far more resilient than most expected.  Inflation is already back down around 3% while the majority of the rest of the western world is still struggling in the 6-8% range.  And we've done it with the stock market almost fully recovered back near ATH's, the housing market staying strong despite huge changes to interest rates, etc.

Maybe it's all a mirage and one last hurrah to hold on before the big crash everyone has been anticipating finally does come, and I've been a bit of a doom and gloomer myself, but I think if you'd asked a year ago if it were possible to get back to 3% inflation in a year with the stock market within 5% of all-time highs and housing prices still within 5% of the peak every single person would have said it was impossible.  Yet here we are.

There's just no way to know.  You just have to consider your own appetite for risk vs. reward.

How good of a view are we talking about?

There's a couple of 4br pool cabins with 4/10 views (but very close to town) listed for around $1M right now.  And a 6br pool cabin listed for $1.1M.

Saturation is not only numbers, it's quality as well.  As much as many markets have been saturated with numbers, many have also been saturated with quality.

Remember, the selling point in the Smokies in 2019 was that the cabins were run by dinosaur PM companies that charged 40%, didn't list on Airbnb/VRBO, didn't use dynamic pricing, didn't have any unique features to the cabins, didn't respond to guests quickly, had poor ratings, etc.  So if you came in and self-managed, threw a $200 Arcade 1up (now $600 each, because everyone is buying them) in there, responded to guests quick and got good reviews, you could stand out.

But that's no longer the standout feature it once was.  There are a lot of people doing that.  Just like in 1995 if you had a hot tub you couldn't swat away the bookings fast enough, but now a hot tub is no longer a standout feature, but a minimum barrier to entry.  Every year we creep closer and closer to self managed, 4.99 review score, fast response times, game room/theater becoming the standard rather than the standout.

The Smokies, at least, is better than a lot of markets on that front.  I have 10 properties in Orlando and who-wee, let me tell you, if you're only putting 150k into crazy cool upgrades on your property when you buy it, you're lagging behind.

This is one of my properties in Orlando: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/52612233

Three years ago I would have said that's a 98th percentile property in quality.  Now I would say maybe 75th percentile?  70th?   We built a 3/4 size X-wing AND Tie Fighter, built a full commercial retro arcade, toddler secret clubhouse, coffee bar, etc and I would say we're maybe 75th percentile on a good day.  Because there are houses with bowling alleys, laser tag arenas, lazy rivers, etc IN THEIR HOUSE now.

5 years ago if you threw a pool table and a foosball table and a dart board in the garage in Orlando you had a "game room".  Now if you do that you have a piece of trash that no one is going to book for $99/nt despite your $800k mortgage at 7.5%. 

Orlando is ahead of the curve on that because that kind of thing is the main selling point there, but it's coming everywhere. I've used my STR host knowledge to aid in our traveling. This year we took a family vacation to Lake Havasu because I knew it was oversaturated with awesome pools and great hosts, and I knew we could get an amazing place at a cheap price. We stayed in a place with a full on resort style backyard (I actually asked the owner what it cost....$800k just for the pool area!!!) like we had our own private Hawaiian resort. For $249/nt. OVER SPRING BREAK!

Again, it's market dependent, but it's coming everywhere.  3 years ago if you had a pool cabin you had to beat off the bookers with a stick, even in the slow season.  Now there are more and more of them, all with the same arcade machines, all with the same 5* reviews.  It's all a matter of time.  The things that made a super property 5 years ago make an average property now.  And the things that make a super property now will make an average property 5 years from now.  The secret is out, and people are going to have to constantly stay 3 steps ahead unless they have a 2018 mortgage that allows them to book at rates that drag the whole market down, all while they tell new investors about how their property is "crushing it" and getting new people in over their heads.