All Forum Posts by: Rohin Dhar

Not Maui, but we have a cottage in Kauai. Found a month to month renter at the beginning of the pandemic which covers a good chunk of the costs and they're flexible to move on when its open for STR business again. Better to lose a little bit of money every month than a lot of money every month! Like a normal long term renter, we screened them very carefully.

@Brenton Ricketts Taos is kind of random. I've been researching lots of different markets and struck up a relationship with an agent there that sent me an off market deal. I wasn't really thinking it was a prudent time for us to buy another place since the world is influx, but it fit all the criteria I've been looking and is a really special place. The deal hasn't closed yet, but when it does i'll post more about. Don't want to jinx it!

@Brenton Ricketts. I'd dig in a bit deeper and talk to folks with homes in Guerneville to verify the Airdna numbers for the winter. There's a huge number of rentals and not much demand in the winter so I'd make sure you're confident on those numbers.

No properties in Nevada, though we go up to tahoe a lot and I've stayed in Incline Village many times and it's a great spot b/c it's also near the lake so gets summer demand. Haven't found a way to make the rental income numbers work on Tahoe yet, but the appreciation in the market has been strong, especially at the moment with everyone in the the bay area wanting to move there. And if you save 9% on state income taxes, the house could essentially be "free."

Our places are in Sonoma and Kauai and we're currently under contract on a place in Taos, NM.

I'm in SF and have a couple of STRs (one in Sonoma near the town). The main thing to think through is the regulations in the area, which is seems like you have already (most of Tahoe is pretty STR friendly i believe and only some parts are not).

The other thing to think about is a lot of the places you're talking about are highly seasonal, so might not be very profitable when you turn them into fulltime STRs. For example, the Russian River isn't that great in the winter (and is only really busy in the summer). Tahoe is dead in the spring and the fall. In the summer it's only busy if you're near the lake (expensive) and in the winter hard to book out the weekdays. A lot of the best locations no longer give our STR permits but there some rare exceptions.

But there is definitely something to your idea, you just need to think hard about finding the right location for the property. Or maybe you don't cashflow much but the property appreciates a lot. Or you buy a place with an in-law apartment you can rent to tourists while you live there (in Tahoe this might work great and there are occasionally places like that).

One other place to consider might the Nevada side of Tahoe in Incline Village which is awesome and then you get the benefit of no state incomes taxes!

Something like that happened with a property we purchased (early bad review on Airbnb from a construction related situation out of our control). It was terrible. We had already refunded them their money due to the issue but still got a bad review.

Here's what we did. My wife called up the guest and politely asked them if they'd be willing to remove the review because the negative review would make it challenging for us to run the Airbnb going forward. 

By some miracle, the guest agreed to remove the review! A few days after the issue took place, they weren't mad about it anymore and they didn't want to do long term harm to our business.

The only way for the review to be removed is for the guest to call up support and explain the situation and why they'd like to remove the review.

Anyhow, it's kind of a longshot, but it worked in our case. We ended up sending the guest a holiday gift basket to thank them for their understanding.

Thanks for the resources @Isaac Yoshimori!

@Isaac Yoshimori Any citation on this point I can check out? "They are seeking to block the ability of the TVNC permit to pass along to the buyer if the property is sold."

Currently closing on a TVR outside of a VDA and want to make sure this isn't a significant risk of happening while we're move the permit to our name!

best,

rohin