All Forum Posts by: Myka Artis

I love this area for investing! I do short-term rentals in Sherwood, Jacksonville, & Little Rock. It's an underserved market for STR's and it's a great market because when COVID hit the US last year this market never took a dip. The reason it never took a dip was due to it being a drive-through state. It's in the dead middle of the United States and anyone driving between Missouri, Oklahoma, TX, Louisiana, TN, Mississippi, etc usually stops in Arkansas. The Little Rock area also outsources all of its construction projects to companies in Texas and they all need places to stay while working.

I lease all my properties to my LLC on a long-term lease so I cash flow about $500 per door on the LTR side.

Congrats!! The BRRRR strategy with the intent to STR is my favorite play in the STR playbook space right now. Keep it up!

Option 3. There are way too many tools available to self-manage your business with very little work involved. I'll list a few systems you can use to automate communications with your guests and your staff that you choose to have on board. A good cleaner can pretty much handle all the day-to-day operations of a short-term rental. If you can connect them with your handyman you are good to go. Anyway on to the tools.

1. Smartbnb (automates guest communication)
2. Yourporter (creates a direct booking interface, handles communication, and can handle turnover appointing)
3. Turnoverbnb (Handles turnover communication with your cleaner and payment)
4. Slack (handles all communication with your operations team)
5. Beyondpricing, PriceLabs, & Wheelhouse (pricing automation tools)

I have a lot of Houston connections so if you do decide to go the Houston short term rental property management company route just let me know I can get you in contact with some of the best in the area.

Smart move starting out with Yourporter. Security deposits are important and I'd use Luke's rule of thumb in this case. Another thing I tell people to look into is having good STR insurance such as Proper or Safely as well.

Hello!

I love the STR/Airbnb strategy to get started. I like getting into STR's with little to no money out of pocket personally so I think the above-mentioned strategies are great. Here are a few to look at if you want to hit the ground running fast.

BRRRR (no money out of pocket if you find the right deal)
House hacking (start-up costs are furnishing & down payment)
Arbitrage (start-up costs are furnishing)
Co-hosting (no money out of pocket)

I personally only do the BRRRR & arbitrage strategy.

On properties that I own that I look to do STR with I put two policies on the property. I treat the property as an arbitrage business model so I put my normal homeowner's insurance on the home and I then lease the property to my LLC. I then let my LLC put another policy on the property through proper. Proper provides short-term rental insurance. In this case, if something goes wrong I have double protection and even triple protection if I'm taking in guests through Airbnb. Hope that answers your question on the short-term rental side.

@Indiana Eugenia Castillo & @Corbin Loveless I use Xome & auction.com. The cool thing about auction.com is you can remote bid and they even tell you about the in-person bids. I will tell you though to do your due diligence on the properties. You want to make sure there aren't any hidden liens and most importantly with the moratorium still in full effect, I'd suggest verifying they are vacant. 

I live in Texas and I'm in a similar situation where the market is really hot and hard to find good deals so I did exactly what you said and went out of state. I went to the state next door and started doing short-term rentals and it's been a hit. I have a few STRs in Kissimmee and Ft. Lauderdale. That market is great! 

I've been buying out of the auctions and finding great deals.

Escrow a regular homeowners insurance policy and then lease your property to an LLC. Put a proper insurance policy on the LLC. Gives you double protection if something breaks from a direct booking and triple protection from a guest coming in through an OTA. Proper is expensive but worth it. They have a loss of income protection, etc.

I'd just make a new account and start over. The new focus for short-term rentals is building your own brand outside of the Airbnb platform anyway. You can take over the account if he gives you credentials or just co-host or be a team member.