All Forum Posts by: Nikki Closser

@Taylor L.  

@Julie McCoy @Edward Seid @Joshua B. @Theresa Harris  

@Josh Walker @Brian G. @Michael Haas @cj m @Sean Mcevoy @Shiloh Lundahl 

@whitney hutten @jonathan R McLaughlin  (I have no idea why sometimes I can't tag people??) 

THANK YOU everyone for your advice! Funny, I thought everyone was going to tell me to hold onto it, so this has been really interesting. We have NO plans to move back to Seattle. We are from Michigan and lived in Seattle for 11 years and are now back home with our family.

We actually do have a 100K HELOC ready to use to BRRRR and flip and are looking at a handful of homes today. This has given me so much to think about!

Thanks so much for your thoughts on this! 

Thanks for the feedback! It’s like, if the house keeps appreciating 35K per year, even if we didn’t cash flow, it makes me really hesitant to sell. But, you really never know what will happen!

Really appreciate the advice! And, it’s secretly what I wanted to hear. But, I tend to be more of a risk taker, so I don’t want to be stupid about it just because I want to make moves.

Hi! So curious what you guys would do in our position.

We bought a house in Seattle (White Center) five years ago and it has appreciated around 200K so far. Each year, we spent a few months in Michigan and we Airbnb’d the Seattle house while we were gone. We did so well with it that when we moved back to Michigan full-time this January, we made the Seattle house a full-time Airbnb. We had it booked 90% of the time and then Covid hit and they all canceled. Then, bookings came back up...but, then the protests started and we are back to zero bookings for the entire summer.

We are in the process of looking for flips and buy and holds here in Michigan to go full speed ahead with investing and we are looking at all of our options.

We can:

1. Get a full time renter in Seattle and break even after paying a property management company. Side note, we were cash flowing over $1000 a month doing Airbnb, so making zero cash flow isn’t as fun. 

2. Weather the Airbnb storm and pay our mortgage out of pocket for a few months (hopefully, that would be it). 

3. Sell it and take the 200K and put it towards a new primary home since we are looking for one anyway. 

4. Sell it and take the 200K and invest in multiple homes here in MI to flip and BRRRR.

Obviously, the house has a history of amazing appreciation. But, it makes me wonder if we could do more with the 200K than maybe it would appreciate in the long run. Seattle has such great appreciation typically, but with so much turmoil happening, it’s making me wonder. My gut says we would be crazy to sell such a great long term appreciation home, but also, if we sell now, we don’t have to worry about 1031 exchange or capital gains. 

Ok, just wondering what you would do??

@Dave Foster @Larkin Adey @Matthew McNeil we actually lived in the house 3 out of the last 5 years, so we wouldn’t even have to do a 1031 exchange. It is VERY tempting to sell and reinvest, but man, the Airbnb profit up to this point has been incredible. Now it’s just a matter of deciding whether to sell and reinvest with the equity/profit somewhere else (we live in MI and that’s where our focus is now) or try to get through this next year. 

@Airika Pope we sort of fell into investing in Seattle because while we lived there, we went back and forth to Michigan and did Airbnb while we were gone. Once we moved back full time to MI, we kept it as an Airbnb because it was so profitable and we also love the equity! We were about to buy two more homes here in MI when this all happened and we put it on hold. But, we are ready to go again and need to make a choice about keeping the Seattle house. So exited for you!! Where are you investing? It’s funny because I was given “homework” to listen to the BP podcast when they asked me to host the Portrait System for SBE because they loved the format of BP and I was quickly hooked on real estate investing after listening! It has been life changing 

@Airika Pope hey!! We actually Airbnb it right now, so we can sell for sure if we want. We aren’t to that point. This is just a general issue that affects all of us landlords in Seattle that I wanted to bring to light. Honestly, though, we are really considering selling and investing where the rules for landlords aren’t insane. 

@Dave E. I actually only have one investment home in WA state and it has been an Airbnb for the last two years. Thankfully, I’ve had the same guests for 8 weeks while they house hunt. But, all of our June guests and half of our July guests canceled and I gave a full refund. I’ve been considering switching it to a long term rental, but Airbnb has been extremely profitable, so I waver between that and just trying to weather the storm.
The reason I posted this is on behalf of some other landlords I know in the area. Like some of you have said, most people seem to be paying rent! However, there are a few cases I’m aware of where the tenants were already in the eviction process before all of this happened and now, they will have to deal with non-paying tenants for I would guess another year. There is one particular case of a landlord named Shaun and it’s really bad. They are destroying his house and he can’t do anything about it. You can hear about it here:
https://mynorthwest.com/category/podcast_player/?a=bc846721-42df-4147-94e9-abb4016d3524&sid=1004&n=The+Dori+Monson+Show

@Jay Hinrichs I actually only have one investment home in WA state and it has been an Airbnb for the last two years. Thankfully, I’ve had the same guests for 8 weeks while they house hunt. But, all of our June guests and half of our July guests canceled and I gave a full refund. I’ve been considering switching it to a long term rental, but Airbnb has been extremely profitable, so I waver between that and just trying to weather the storm.
The reason I posted this is on behalf of some other landlords I know in the area. Like some of you have said, most people seem to be paying rent! However, there are a few cases I’m aware of where the tenants were already in the eviction process before all of this happened and now, they will have to deal with non-paying tenants for I would guess another year. There is one particular case of a landlord named Shaun and it’s really bad. They are destroying his house and he can’t do anything about it. You can hear about it here:
https://mynorthwest.com/category/podcast_player/?a=bc846721-42df-4147-94e9-abb4016d3524&sid=1004&n=The+Dori+Monson+Show

@john 

@Account Closed totally understand and you are absolutely correct about taking action.  And, people are much more likely to take advice from someone who is respectful and a class act, not from someone who is demeaning.