All Forum Posts by: Stephen E.

They've already ended in New Orleans: https://www.nola.com/news/cour...

So I have this beautiful house but it doesn't get enough of a return on rentals so I've decided to sell it and invest somewhere with better cash flow. I already have great pictures of the house so I don't need any help with that. The tenants are nice so I would be able to show it while they are there. At the same time, I know it's better to show a house that is empty.

I'm worried if I am unable to sell it, because it has tenants until October, then on Trulia, etc. it'll say "listed for 30 days" and that will make the house less attractive.

It's a beautiful residence, not a good fit for an investor, so the people looking at the house would almost certainly be people who intended to live there.

Hey @Tommy Keay I think you're doing things right. I wouldn't listen to people criticizing your process. Shadowing someone going through their first deal will be enormously helpful for you. Also, since it sounds like you haven't saved your down payment yet, why not go through all these steps you're outlining in the meantime.

I used to be a writer. I wrote a bunch of published books. I would often outline the books and then throw away the outline. That doesn't mean the outline wasn't useful. It kept me engaged in the process when I was stuck or had nothing else to do. And sometimes it wouldn't inspire something beautiful.

Of course, when you have the down payment and closing costs, you really just need to go get a house. Don't wait around for perfect. You don't want to wait six months to save a few thousand dollars. You need to get in there with both feet. Then the real learning starts. Often, especially with the first house, a good deal is a good enough deal.

Good luck!

I would like to be able to see a stream of all the posts by the people I am following, or connected with. I guess it would be similar to a Facebook feed, or twitter feed, except, in my case at least, much more interesting.

The people I "follow" and "connect" with here are interesting people with interesting things to say, and I would like to read all of their posts.

I realize I can go to the individual pages of people I've connected with, or to forums I've followed, but that's not what I want. I want an RSS feed of all of their posts and responses. I mean, I connected with them for a reason. Because I think they're smart, and/or we have something in common.

Anyway, am I missing something? Is there a way to do this?

AirBnB definitely takes more time, but not that much more time. It actually depends a lot on scale. I think you'll find managing one AirBnB to be really easy, and not over-occupying, and really lucrative. However, by your 2nd and 3rd STR it starts to take up a lot of your headspace (note, I'm only talking from my own experience here, so grain of salt, etc.). There are a lot of little things to think about and when something happens it's an emergency, almost every time.

Think of it like this. Almost everything that goes wrong with a tenant happens during the move-in process, but an AirBnB has 4 to 6 move-ins every month.

At the same time, if you just have one STR, I think you'll find it really easy, and well worth all the extra money. For me, personally, I've down sized to 2 STRs, my best performers. And I might even downsize to 1 STR when I move. In my experience they just don't scale as well as regular rentals. I've previously had up to 6 STRs at a time, at which point I was going crazy.

So my personal advice, based on what you've written through this thread, is try it as an AirBnB, but only do up to 3 months in advance (you can do this in settings). That'll give you a chance to try it without over-committing, and if nothing else will pay for the furnishings. Then you can decide if you want it to be a furnished rental or what.

One great thing, also, about having the AirBnB experience, is then you'll know what you're doing. Like, when I travel, I also do AirBnB out of  my home, because why not, it's empty. And I have another property that's going from a long term rental to a mid-term corporate rental (or possibly sale) and in the between I can fill in the cracks with AirBnB rentals. So getting your feet wet will teach you how to do that.

If you go STR feel free to shoot me a message. I'll walk you through it.

stephen

@John Underwood there are lots of reasons to furnish a rental and not do it as an STR. Some markets do well with furnished rentals and the premium is high enough to justify it. Sometimes you want to do corporate housing or mid-length housing for 3 to 6 months for a variety of reasons, but you don't want to do weekly turnover. It depends on the market and your plans.

Decent credit like in the 700s? Probably not. Depending on the year I'm betting 157th St was a B, haha.

@Josephine Wilson owning B/C/D properties doesn't make you a slum lord. Not taking care of people and **** over  your tenants makes you a slum lord. Lots of nice  people in B and C class neighborhoods who  care about their homes.

There's no real agreement on what qualifies as a B or C  property, by the way. But a D property is a worse.

@Brandon Turner how do you find it, having STRs so far apart? I have a couple in New Orleans, and have thought about expanding, but I'm worried about managing long distance, and I can't imagine not self-managing an STR.

That  said, when I'm not in NOLA I have my people that help me out.  But in a new market I wouldn't have that. Super curious how you're finding it!