All Forum Posts by: Ryan Moyer

Unless the person bought a month ago (and probably even then) someone's net cash flow isn't going to be very relevant to you as you're not going to be buying with the same terms as them.

You're better off gathering up revenue projections and all of the expenses and doing the calculation yourself based on your purchase price.  Your debt service is likely to be more than double what anyone that purchased more than a year or so ago is paying every month.

 Why?

1) Time, research, and underwriting practice

2) Yes, most here self manage.  Not all, but most.

3) Honestly most of us had it easier than someone getting in the game now will.  Cash flow used to be a lot higher before the space got so crowded and margins got thinner.  So it was very possible to use cash flow from a property saved up to buy the next one.  Now, with cash flow lower and startup costs higher (higher home costs) this would take much longer.

Additionally, a lot of us lucked into free equity that we weren't planning for just by owning multiple homes before the market exploded.  Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, and while some of us might be good, all of us got very lucky.

4) Avery/Luke Carl literally wrote the book on it (Avery has a book published through biggerpockets that is great).  Robuilt's youtube channel is good for broad overview type stuff and motivation (though I think he's way overrated at underwriting and getting his properties to perform).  Bill Faeth is great for maximizing revenue of your properties once you get them.

Prices and availability -> Taxes

Airbnb doesn't penalize you for adding an additional tax.

You happen to be on a forum with the best and most knowledgeable STR real estate team in Tennessee. You want to hit up Avery Carl or Luke Carl of the Short Term Shop.

 Does Houfy have a way to remove the Houfy banner at the top?  Even if it costs extra, seems worth it.  Seems to confuse guests.

I own my STRs, if that's what you mean. Regarding arbitrage, I think the reason most arbitragers get an LLC is because it gives a sense of legitmacy to the landlords they're trying to rent from, and also because they try and attain business credit loans to get started.

There could be reasons beyond that though, I don't know as I don't do arbitrage.  The vast majority of people on this forum own their properties and are not arbitragers (this is a real estate investment forum first and foremost) so probably not the best source for info on arbitrage.

As I understand it, it is going to be difficult for you to prove material participation when you have a W-2 job whether you're in state or not.

Isn't one of the requirements of material participation that you can't spend more time on something else?  IE you have to spend more time on the rental than your W-2 job, which seems unlikely.

Most people use material participation when they have a non-working spouse. Then the spouse can be the one that materially participates in the STR, but the depreciation can be used against the working spouse's W2.

Not a CPA, so I could have that all wrong.

I don't have mine in an LLC, nor do many others.

I'm not a lawyer, but I've heard from many that an LLC will do little to actually protect you here, especially the way 99% of people using them for real estate have them structured.

But what it WILL do is make everything a lot more complicated, and get you worse terms on your loans, etc.

It didn't seem worth all the extra effort/cost to me for something that likely won't actually help much if push comes to shove with litigation anyway.