All Forum Posts by: Steve Uekert

Hi Scott,

Thank you for your reply, but was wondering if you might elaborate on something because I'm a little confused by one part of your answer.

First I agree with you about bigger not always being better, and I certainly appreciate your thoughts around the cash flow percentage.

However, you then stated that the "smaller short term rentals will get crushed" which leads me to think, in that scenario, wouldn't the larger be better?

Or perhaps I'm just not fully understanding where you're coming from. Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Happy Wednesday everyone,

I have a question that I've been pondering. After sitting on the sidelines for a long time, my wife and I are finally moving from interested, to serious in our pursuit of a STR. We're likely going to be staying in our backyard (so to speak) of Orlando for our first since we can learn and be close to it before we start out of state investing.

Anyway, my question revolves around the size of home, but it's not from a typical angle I think.

In this market, it seems like the larger the property you can afford, the more you can expect from cash flow. This of course assuming you have the right theming, manage it great, etc.

So as a loose example, a 5 bed home might get revenue around 50 to 60k a year, a 10 bed home has the potential to earn a couple of hundred thousand a year. I know these figures depend on a lot of things, but I've seen research from quite a few properties and they all seem to point to the same thing.

All of that might point to "get the bigger house" but my concern as a newbie is, what about a recession?

If we assume we're looking at recession over the next year or two, the first thing to typically dry up is peoples discretionary budget so trips to Disney get postponed or cancelled altogether.

Therefore, from a planning perspective, if the STR market dries up or slows WAY down like it is in other markets, it would seem to be to be an easier thing to potentially shift to long term rental for a year or two if you were renting out a 4 or 5 bed home, versus trying to LTR in a 10+ bed home.

I'm just looking at this from a strategic perspective and trying to play this as smart as I can. I know there will be risks regardless, but I'd like to try and mitigate as many as I can as smartly as possible.

Or maybe I'm just over thinking this too much.

I would appreciate any thoughts or feedback on this.

Thank you everyone!

Steve

Hello everyone!

As I continue to absorb as much information as I can, I find myself with more questions than answers (which is normal I guess). I also find myself trying to narrow my focus down a bit to a specific type of investing that I might want to begin with as we get closer to starting our real estate adventure.

As I've shifted from STR's, to LTR's and now more recently into multi-family investments, I've begun thinking about commercial. Just to be transparent, I've just started looking into commercial, so I know almost nothing yet (but trying to learn and read as much as I can).

I know commercial properties tend to have a higher possibility of greater cash flow, but also seem to cost significantly more to get into.

Which got me thinking, if a person wanted to begin the foray into commercial investing, what are some of the options you'd look at that seem to have a lower barrier to entry (obviously this is subjective)?

Small office buildings? Hotels? Retail space? Etc.

Or, is commercial real estate something a rookie should avoid?

Sorry for all the high level questions, I'm just looking to starting filling in the blanks of everything I don't know. Once I know a bit more of what I don't know, then I'll know more questions to ask LOL. 

Thank you all very much for any insight you're willing to share!

Steve

Thank you everyone for very solid and extremely insightful information.Makes a ton of sense and gives me a very specific direction to head in to!

Hello everyone!

For all you seasoned folks on here, if you were just starting out and were going to try and find some mentors, how would you go about doing that?

I'd love to start some serious relationships with folks that I could connect with, help one another and learn from.

I feel like I know just enough to be dangerous, but would love to have some people in my life that could help me refine my direction a bit, or bring clarity to areas where I'm just feeling a bit lost and overwhelmed.

At 46 years old, I feel like I've lived and learned enough to have a lot of wisdom in some areas, but yet feel like an absolute newbie in this area. And when you consider that my long term goal would be to make enough money to possibly be able to step away from a full time corporate job, to me, that requires folks that know what they are doing and enjoying sharing that type of information with others.

Anyway, I hope you all are doing great and are willing to share some insight!

Steve

Hi folks,

So I'm just continuing down the rabbit hole (research, analysis, etc) and doing some preliminary numbers checks on AirBNB and VRBO, leave me wondering if any of you owners in this market are actually making good money here?

Just plugging in a week stay sometime in October, most places are coming up less than $100 a night (literally $75 in some cases) for 3 and 4 bedroom places. VRBO's numbers are only slightly higher, but almost none of them were showing good enough numbers to cover a mortgage, insurance, hoa's, fee's, blah blah blah for a beginner like me.

I mean, I'm hearing people talk about clearing thousands of dollars a month (some in this area) and I'm trying to figure out how when at the numbers above, I'd barely be breaking even (if that).

Am I looking at this incorrectly or did I miss something big?

Steve

Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend so far!

As I'm learning as much as a I can about real estate in the context of STR, one question that has arisen the most in my head (especially living in a destination city like Orlando) is which type of "home" makes the most sense to invest in.

At first glance, it would seem SFH would be the best, and it just might be. But you have a much higher cost of entry of course. As well as the ongoing maintenance, upkeep, etc that makes owning a home a much larger investment than the purchase price.

But is there any data showing which of the above are the best for cash flow?

I mean, there are Condo's, but fee's and HOA's are a crap shoot. I've seen some great looking townhomes that are as close to SFH as they can be. Many with their own pool, no back or side neighbors (at least on one side), etc.

Then there are the resort communities. These are the ones with all the resort amenities like resort pools, on site restaurants and arcades, weight rooms, (and a huge list of other things). These of course look great on the surface, but seem to have some things that can make them not so desirable such as very high HOA's and requirements to use their PM's and Cleaners. Then you are also at the mercy of their front desk sometimes for guest reception which could be great, or horrible, depending on the resort.

Anyway, I would just love to be able to narrow down my search (as we try and get closer to our first property) and get rid of some of my nagging doubts or confusion about which direction would be best to go.

I would greatly appreciate any feedback and first hand experiences that anyone has with these types of circumstances!

Thank you so much for your time and help!

Steve

Hi Everyone,

My wife and I also live right outside of Orlando and are wanting to starting the STR business.

Would love to connect with any one of you who are also in this market as it seems like there are some headwinds starting due to the current economic state, revenge travel normalizing and just over saturation of this market.

If we enter this particular market, I'd love to do it with as much momentum as we can get so tips and pointers and other connections would be extremely helpful!

As a side note, for those of you in this market, have you had difficulty with bookings in the last 4 to 6 weeks? Going into Fall, do you foresee that worsening or actually getting better due to winter travelers?

Thank you! Trying to learn as much as I can!

Steve

 Hi Don!

I'm planning on responding to everyone, but wanted to take a moment to respond to this post as I think you got to the heart of some of the feelings I've had since I began thinking and researching this business.

Yes, I've been uncomfortable with debt for most of my life due to seeing debt ruin people around me. However, I'd like to think that while I'm uncomfortable with debt, that I'm not afraid of it as long as it most definitely qualifies as the "good" or "productive" debt. In fact, my wife and I have had a lot of discussion about this and one of the first things we talked about what about risk and how we're going to have to get comfortable with it.

We're not risk averse, but we've definitely gotten comfortable and are willing to step out in faith. Having no debt is great, as long as you have the income or wealth to be able to retire without having to sell everything to live. And right now, I feel that's where we'd be at. So I'm more willing than ever to embrace the right kind of debt.

Having said that, is there a particular route that you would recommend or a direction you'd point someone like me in? Highly grateful for Bruces advice above regarding the HELOC but I've also seen the Home Equity Refi's and several others. Seems there are Pros and Cons to both (interest rate variability, repayment terms, etc), but being so green at this, I'm feeling a little like a deer in the headlights.

Thank you again and I look forward to hearing back from you!

Steve

Hello everyone,

My name is Steve and at 46 years old, I'm looking to possibly start a STR business and while I've been doing a lot of research, I guess I'm feeling a little lost (or maybe overwhelmed is a better way of describing it).

For a little background, I'm currently a W2 employee (and have been always). My wife is as well. We moved to Florida 2 years ago and love it here. We're currently outside of Orlando and have been looking to find something in our backyard (within 30ish miles or so)

Our situation:

    -We have pretty much no debt at all, including owning our home. We do owe a bit on a Truck we bought earlier in the year, but that's it. No CC debt or any other consumer debt.

    -Our current home is probably worth around $500 - $550 (with current market conditions)

    -We wanted to focus on having no debt, but now we also aren't left with a lot of capital and very little in retirement (hence our desire to look into real estate to help build wealth and recurring income). Would be nice to retire someday haha.

So, I guess I'm just wondering how to get started since we don't have a ton for a down payment (could probably come up with $25k in cash without touching a current 401k that's not all that large).

Also, the Orlando area (and outlying area) looks to be pretty saturated, but there is also a TON of tourist's that visit here too so I'm not sure if one cancels out the other in this type of business. I would be willing to look at other markets here in Florida such as Tampa, Sarasota, Pensacola or other similar type of places, I just haven't done much research into those areas yet. And, since we're just starting out and wanting to learn the business, we thought it best to stay as close to home as we could for the time being.

Anyway, consider me a dry sponge. I'm willing to learn as much as I can as we look to start into this business. I'd love any advice, tips, thoughts, concerns, or anything else you have to offer a rookie like me.

Thank you all so much and I sincerely appreciate you taking any time you can spare to help us out!

Steve