All Forum Posts by: Susan Snodgrass

Hi everyone! Wanted to update about our search. We haven't been successful at finding a property yet that the numbers work. We are still open to the area, but we haven't found anything at the right price point yet. From some of these other comments on here, I'm also concerned about the STR regulations there... I appreciate everyone sharing their experience and advice!

@Ross Dickson Great advice too! Thank you for sharing!

Thank you all for your input and advice! @Josh Ormonde and @Andrew Street I will reach out to you to learn more. @Mike Smith your advice is something we definitely talk about and important to take into consideration. Thank you!

Hello,

My husband and I are first-time investors and are considering buying a STR property in Three Rivers, CA, near Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. I searched on the forums, but any post I found about that area was from several years ago, so I'm looking for anyone who has some more recent/current experience with owning a STR in that area. We live in southern CA ourselves, and are also interested to find a place that we could use ourselves occasionally as a vacation rental. I also saw that Three Rivers was listed on Airdna's list of top places to own an STR, which is another reason we are interested in that area and would love to hear from anyone with experience owning a rental property there.

Thank you!

Susan Snodgrass

@Christina Hall

Thank you for your response! I appreciate the input, and what you shared is exactly what I've been thinking. Would you mind sharing a little more of the specifics of your rental (price paid, # of bedrooms/baths, square footage, occupancy rate, annual revenue, etc.)? Also, where is your house located? Do you have lake rights? Feel free to message me instead of posting in the forum.

Thanks!!

Hello!

First-time investor here, in need of some advice from the BP experts!

My husband and I are very interested in buying a vacation rental property in either Big Bear or Lake Arrowhead, CA. We live in Orange County, and would like to rent it out most of the time, but would love to stay in it a few times a year.

I have browsed the forums, and seen some older posts on this topic, but would love to hear from people with some more recent experience.

I know that Big Bear tends to be more popular, and there is more to do there, but it also seems like a very saturated market with vacation rentals, so competition would be very high there.

Airdna actually ranks Lake Arrowhead as having a bit higher rental demand than Big Bear, but I’m worried about its smaller size and fewer activities, and the lake being private.

Does anyone have any recent experience in either/both of these areas? Does anyone know how accurate the data on Airdna or Mashvisor is for those two areas? The annual revenue and average daily rates seem high and I’m wondering if the numbers are inflated?

Thank you!!

Hello BP Community!

First time poster here! My husband and I are both teachers living in southern Orange County, CA, and we want to jump into real estate investing. Since our area in California is very expensive, we are looking to invest in long-term buy and hold properties out of state. We are interested in SFRs, as well as small multi-families. We have been looking into some turnkey companies, and would be willing to go that route, but would be even more excited to build a team in an area and find properties ourselves.

I have been learning so much from the forums on BP! I feel like we still have SO much more to learn, but also don't want to get stuck in analysis paralysis, and are ready to get started!

We currently have about $500k in equity in our own home, and are in the process of taking out about $200k as a HELOC to start investing. My question is what would be the best use of that money? Our initial idea was to use some of it as down payment(s) on one or more properties, but we are a little lost on the best area to invest in this current market. We are looking to buy one or more properties in the $80-$100k range, but are open to spending more for the right property. We are hoping to maximize our cash flow so we can pay off any HELOC money we use, and repeat the process as soon as possible.

Any advice on best markets to get us started? Since we would be investing long-distance, we are hoping to find something that needs no/minimal work done, and would also like to find a property management company to manage it for us. 

Also any advice on the the best way to use our HELOC and get started would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!!