All Forum Posts by: Sourabh Bora

@John D. thanks.  I am actually planning to pull permits. For extra toilets, I see that all the tiny houses in the area offers composting toilets (Sun Mar) and people seem to love it. I might just use that . 

I recently went to the Ulster county tax sale. Some decent parcels went for $500 and up range. ( 1 acre and up ) .

The $50 and $100 parcels were pretty bad this time.

Thanks @Jay Bhatt 

@Julie Gates Thanks! I think I get it now, like Tim suggested , I might go for "back to woodstock" theme.

@Tyson S. My agent thinks as long as I fix the foundation in one part, I should be good with permits. Also, i am just doing cash investment for now, and the sketchup was primarily for BP community and construction.

The Zoning question:

The house is a legal 2 bedroom and it will stay that way. My data shows that most travelers are couples and they do not care about a large 2 bedroom space. I am just reconfiguring it with tall bunk beds and temporary walls to turn it into multiple tiny houses within a house. 

1. The Barn (the front part) already has a  400 sqft loft, a space for a Kitchenette and a bathroom and its own separate front entrance. 

2. The kitchen is 16 by 16.  I want to add a macerating toilet and a shower. (without permit)  Both can be easily removed. it also has its own entrance.

3. The back part (I call it the pizza part) has 3 living spaces with loft style beds. it also has its own back entrance. I can again put a macerating toilet type temporary arrangement , a kitchenette (hotplate, microwave, sink, toaster oven, fridge ) and make it a separate airbnb "entire house" 

****The house was build in 1971. However, the whole zoning thing in that city started only in 1975. The owners kept on adding these weird additions till the 2000s. The city had no idea and they assume that it was all done in 1971!! In 2011, however, they came and took pictures. 

Thanks again for all the input. 

I initially looked at airdna, but decided that it is not very useful. 

I wrote a simple script to count the number of rentals in a city and the number of reviews each rental has .

Also i extracted the average rate per night, but it was not very useful as the types of rentals vary so much.

. A easier way is , just to search for superhosts. 

If city A has more superhosts than city B, obviously city A gets more traffic. 

@Tim Schroeder and @Julie Gates Thanks ! I am not a very creative person. Do you guys have any pictures/pinterest boards in mind which can help me figure out a theme ?

@Nick Hakim @Chris Szepessy Do you guys know any good contractors in the area ? Plumbers, Roofers , General Contractors, Carpenters ? 

@John D.: The regulations in the area are pretty lax. I am going ahead WITHOUT plans. The roof of the house, especially on the "kitchen" part, is completely gone. Unless I raise it , snow will continue to accumulate, and rot will have again pretty soon. Now, if i raise it a little bit more, I get vaulted ceiling (more potential resale value + another rental with a tall loft style bed ) 

Hi Biggerpockets family,

With your help and blessings, I finally took the plunge! Bought this little fixer upper in Palenville, NY. Now I need your guidance, as I walk my rehab journey. I will keep posting my progress report.  Thanks!! -Sourabh

Summary: 115 miles from NYC, 1.1 acres, 2 bed 1 bath house with a strange configuration. Purchase price $70k. Needs extensive work. I want to develop it into multiple tiny Airbnb rentals. And later on, take advantage of the 1.1 acres and put up Yurt/ Dome / Tiny house etc as a glamping setup.

Pictures:

The 3d model 

Front view ( The barn with loft)

Right view (Barn, Kitchen and .. the back part I lovingly call, the pizza) == also, what i plan to do with it.

back view ...Current view and the Planned renovation view

The left side view 

Location:

115 miles from NYC ( 140 minutes)

12 miles from Woodstock and Hunter ski mountain. ( 25 mins)

8 miles to HITs Saugerties (15 mins)

25 minutes to Hudson.

The cities I have just mentioned are the TOP Airbnb locations in Hudson Valley/ Catskills as listed below. ( I wrote a scraper program to get all the Airbnb data)

I have been looking at Smallwood, NY (part of bethel NY) for airbnb purpose. The houses are super cute and very reasonably priced.

I know this thread is a bit old , but I have been seeing some properties in Smallwood, NY (a beautiful cabin community in Bethel, NY) Many houses there are seasonal only, but they seem to do great on airbnb. I am planning to buy for vacation rental purpose. Does anyone have any knowledge about smallwood ?

I scraped airbnb for the areas within 2 hours of NYC .. and I have information on every single airbnb up to $311 per night . (entire home only) . Running my scraping script takes a bit of technical knowhow. So, ping me if you need any info. An easier way to do this is, search for a city, put superhost in the filter and see how many results show up. (a larger number of superhosts means more people are succeeding ) . I did NOT put that filter for my data download.