All Forum Posts by: Sean Bramble

 @Jamiel Strickland - interesting. It seems that given the digital nature and scalability of these mentorships (and inherently low teacher to student ratios) the value - if it is actually there - would have to be in the community itself. If people are actually doing the work, then you essentially gain a community of mentors. So in a sense, the quality of the mentorship is a function of who is in it in the first place. Would you say that is true? How has the community you are in helped you?

@Leo R. the one I'm looking at now is Kai Andrew's "Land Hacker" program. Looks like it's about $2000 per year.

I'm considering joining a short term rental development mentorship/ mastermind (i.e., building, not buying STRs) that helps students through the process of picking a market, finding land, navigating zoning & permits, and working w/ an architect/ GC to complete the project. I've never developed real estate, and see the value in having someone to guide me who has done it before so I can avoid unnecessary mistakes. I know I can learn the "theory" for free on the internet, but the one-on-one coaching with an actual human when I'm running into real issues along the way is what I'm after.

I'm noticing a lot of these "mentorship" businesses pop up (many led by Youtube gurus), and am concerned about signing up for something that focuses more on marketing/ new student acquisition/ standardized teaching than actually providing the specific, one-on-one coaching I'm after. What questions do I need to ask to make sure the group I'm joining is actually going to provide me with value that justifies the price they charge?

building is only worth it if you’re willing to wait for it and are:

a) able to build well below appraisal value (i.e., gaining immediate equity), and/or

b) able to build a compelling enough hospitality product that it outperforms the competition on a revenue per square foot basis (i.e., boosting cashflow). 

”B” is why I’m personally interested in building. If you do enough market research you’ll find comps all over the US that outperform the competition on a revenue per square foot basis. And since the cost to build is often driven by the size of the structure, there is an arbitrage opportunity to be had for those building deliberately with the customer in mind.

Bonus points if you’re zoned commercial, and can monetize your cashflow by selling the property at cap rate after a stabilization period. Lots of upside if you’re willing to deal with the headache, but way more that can go wrong. Decisions decisions. The ultimate “marshmallow test”.

Anyone else have a contrarian perspective?

When using creative strategies to buy-and-hold (subto/ seller finance, hybrids), how important is purchase price? In theory, purchase price only matters when you sell, and I’ve heard of many investors being willing to pay over market value bc the terms they negotiate allow them to cashflow very well … but there must be a limit to how much you should be willing to pay? What are your rules of thumb, and most importantly why?

@James Lauer your cleaning fees seem quite low @ $3800 per year. if you’re pricing to (nearly) maximize occupancy I would budget for 2 or so cleanings per week. Better yet check Airdna for the average length of stay in that area, see what a reasonable occupancy target is, and estimate based on those two data points.

Cleaning is definitely your biggest operating expense, and Airdna’s revenue estimates include cleaning fee revenue, so don’t skimp on doing a realistic bottoms up of what you’ll actually pay your cleaners.

OR maybe you just forgot a zero and I typed all of that for nothing ;)

 @Ricky A. is there any way to do this HOA trick when buying a re-sold property in an existing HOA?

 AHH I get it now. The banks don't see much default risk bc the govt insures it. So minimal fluctuation w/ credit score. Thank you!

and thanks to everyone!

Here's an example of the "towns" within Ulster county in NY ..If carved up like other states, there would just be Ulster County and a few incorporated cities/ real towns (here it would be Saugerties, Kingston, New Paltz, and Ellenville). The rest would just be county land, and as long as the county is STR-friendly (which many are around the US as long as there isn't a huge city within them) it would be relatively safer to invest outside of city/ real town limits (especially if the county is poor and dependent on occupancy/ "hotel" taxes). But NY State carves up its counties into larger "towns", and gives them a lot of power to regulate STRs themselves despite some of these areas being extremely rural. It seems like small difference, but in reality these larger NY "towns" are on average more likely to limit/ ban STRs than entire counties in other states. I think of them sort of like really big HOAs.

To get a sense of what regulation looks like at a local level as it's being crafted, you can watch videos of the town of Shandaken designing STR regulations online (they put them on Youtube I believe). You'll see them weigh the pros and cons of various limitations, many of which have huge impacts on the value of investments people have already made in that town (i.e., whether STR permits which they grant to existing operators who were there before regs went into affect will be transferrable to new owners of the property .... HUGE impact on your exit options as an investor).

All of this said, there are some "towns" in NY state that have historically been dependent on tourism and are very unlikely to limit/ ban STRs. Hunter, Windham, and Jewett come to mind (but home values there make getting a decent ROI on your STR investment difficult). And then there is always investing somewhere else and getting "grandfathered in" ... which could be a lucrative investment if thought through appropriately (and if the town doesn't outright ban STRs in the future, including existing operators)