All Forum Posts by: Onan Dumas

@Jonathan Mason

Just make sure to ask enough questions. If you don’t want a party (which Airbnb band all parties right now anyway) be straight forward. I’ve asked people directly, is this a party because if it is we do not allow parties. Just set the expectations and the tire kickers will move along or they’ll book. My rates are high enough anyway that they scare away a lot of the people trying to pool together money to have a party.

@Kevin Boyd

They pm’ed each other. See the above messages.

@Fiza Petro

I think it’s not as big of a deal as people think. I honestly don’t provide a washer and dryer in most of my listings. I have them onsite locked up to be used as a supply room and laundry for the cleaning crews and I’ve yet to have a complaint about it or negative reviews concerning that. People know what they are getting up front and if that’s something they are looking for then they will pass. For those that don’t need it, will end up booking your place.

I also don’t provide alcohol for liability reasons.

@Michelle Paulsen

I’m not a big fan of the 401k. The fees over time eat away at your gains which is something a lot of people don’t understand somehow. This is a long discussion but the simple fact is that there are other better avenues to put your money pre and post tax.

However, any free match must be taken advantage of. It’s free money after all! But I would not put a dime over what is matched. In your case it’s 100%. So that settles that.

For everyone else though, there are better ways to grow your money than a 401k. I'd rather do an IRA such as a Roth or traditional.

@Javier Rosales

If it makes you feel better I’ve been doing deals for a while now and am currently nervous about some construction work we are doing at the moment. It’s a natural occurrence that happens sometimes before the exhilaration that you feel after all is said and done and you end up rocking it out.

You were intelligent enough to get yourself here and you’ll be just the same to get yourself out of any trouble.

@Dhaval Taylor

Though I own STR's I personally prefer to stay at hotels because it tends to be cheaper for what is provided. I find Airbnb a little pricy for my liking if it's just me or my family. Hypocritical of me? Nope, I'm merely providing a service people are willing to pay for, doesn't mean I have to use it much.

@Nathan G.

I shudder when I hear the word arbitrage. I own a few in Dallas and Cleveland and can’t tell you the amount of messages I get asking to make my life easier blah blah. The most entertaining messages to me on BP are the ones that deal with brand new wholesalers, someone looking for a free mentor, and those looking to get into arbitrage.

Airbnb is just a different beast in itself when it comes to hosts AND guests. Somehow they dominate the market so it pays the bills, but it has always been an interesting experience.

@Danielle Champagne

Well my journey started on accident twice in a row. First house we put renters in our home we lived in because wife wanted to stay home with baby #2 and we couldn't comfortably afford the mortgage on a single salary. 3 years later that initial $1800 FHA down payment we made turned into $87k when we sold the home.

On our second home I wanted to sell but I wouldn’t take less than a grand slam. It was a slow market and we had already bought our next personal residence so paying two mortgages wasn’t fun. We brainstormed and thought we could put it on Airbnb for about a month and show the house between guests. We had no idea what we were doing and Airbnb was still pretty new so we didn’t know what it would turn into. We were instantly booked for two months straight with maybe a day or two not booked. Our real estate agent wasn’t too stoked when we told her we were probably not selling.

That started our investing journey and our mild obsession with short term rentals and a few LTR’s. It’s also fueled our residential construction hobby, and now working on opening an events center.

My advice is commit to getting the best you can and soon. Everything doesn’t always turn out great but the killer of any amazing real estate life is analysis paralysis. Education is great but sometimes we make ourselves lifelong students and look back and have every degree known to man but no real fruit to show for it.

Go for it, I believe in you!

@Dracy Campbell

I wouldn’t do it. I’m not sure if there a personal connection for you on this one, and there may be because otherwise I don’t see why you would pursue this for your clients at such a risk for an investor. Your asking for someone to take on a speculative risk on people who’s credit MAY be better or who’s interest may not change in two years time. Commission fees, closing costs on both ends, and capital gains will absolutely shred much of any profits you may make.

Plus, as others have mentioned here already, this type of situation has practically been done away with so there is that added risk for the investor.

@Michael Elefante

Love hearing this. This is what we mostly do, and from the smallest property to the largest, we have done very well for ourselves and everyone just seems so unbelieving when we tell them how they cash flow. We own LTR's as well but don't count on cash flow for those, those are mainly for equity appreciation. However for our STR's we absolutely expect a good amount of cash flow.

I like how you turned the Garage into a theatre room. Creativity like this is how you add value to STR's. I've turned a couple of garages into their own room/listing which have added 14k yearly and 12k yearly respectively. All easily convertible back into a garage if I wanted but by spending less than 20k on each conversion I was able to receive almost all of that back within the first year and then profit year and after.

Congrats on your success. Consider beach vacation rentals as well, we do pretty well in Galveston!