All Forum Posts by: William Beck

@Brian Denvir

1) Check for HOA or Local restrictions on Vacation Rental. This could be deal breaker from the start. Or if HOA is super pricey, could kill your deal.
2) Get an idea of true occupancy curve for tourism and times of year to get your estimated days rented as that will factor intro your Gross Revenue
3) Make sure to do due diligence on cost of what you're getting and what it will potentially earn. 
4) Management - investigate what full service or hybrid service options are available in the area. Hybrid meaning, you could manage the VRBO listing, and they manage the cleanings or using an Evolve/Vacasa/Turnkey
5) Lending - figure out the types of lending options available in the market area you're looking. Condo's for vacation rental tend to be commercial loans, harder for banks to do a 2nd home mortgage. 
6) Amenities! you're going to be competing as an 'experience' on Airbnb/VRBO/Booking.com and you'll need to provide a nice experience for your guests. They will pick your place if it's better, so trust your gut on what's qualitatively nice and the bookings should follow.

If you want ski, you could always be close to ski proximity in like Fairplay/Alma (For Breck) or Granby/Grand Lake (For Winter Park). For SLC Park City is a bit tough just because of prices there. 

@Chris Kuropatwa If you're trying to stay in state, I'd agree with @Holly Barrett Also Blue Ridge!
There are a lot of markets out there where you can make it work. There are even more where it doesn't! 

Just mainly weigh:
1. Regulations - to what degree does this area allow/not allow vacation rentals?
2. Occupancy Curve - How many people come here during the course of the year for tourism?
3. Home prices - what are the values of property in this part of the country relative to what they could earn as a STR?

That's like 95% of it. Then it just becomes deal specifics. Also agree with @Michael Baum that Airdna can be pretty 'meh' with the data they have. It's something, but I have seen material errors in their #'s vs. actual #'s. 

You could also opt to buy a vacation rental that's turnkey and fully ramped so you don't have to start from scratch. Hope this helps. 

@Steven Gudiel The coastal spots & TN mentioned above are viable. There are other good spots too though where you might broaden your search landlocked vacation rental tourist destinations with cheap real estate like Poconos PA, Ozark area of US (Branson, MO; Hot Springs, AR; Broken Bow, OK *Not the actual Lake of the Ozarks area though, too seasonal) If you're prioritizing cash flow, pick tourism hubs with strong track records for occupancy curve that stays full for 9 or 10+ months at the least. Some of those more northern Carolina Beach spots (Myrtle, looking at you) start to be 7-8ish months. If you're thinking of an Urban Airbnb, I would just be cautious of regulatory nature of big cities as they tend to not care so much for the short term rentals (NYC, Chicago, LA, Vegas, Portland...). Reason being there are NIMBY's and politicians want to keep affordable housing for people to live there (and who vote there) via ownership or rent instead of prioritizing a free market for investors wanting to own/operate STRs. 

At your price point, Watch out for HOA dues! You could find a 'killer deal' in Panama City Beach only to find out the COA for the complex is $749/month. Hit me up if you ever want to chat more.

@Luke J Nelsen I've spent the last couple years answering that question. Things have definitely changed in the past year with Covid but I've still got some favorites like Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, Branson, Poconos, Broken Bow, Hot Springs. If you'd like to connect let me know. 

@Sean Lee I helped lots of people do this strategy and I own vacation rental investment property. Management can be had for cheaper than 30-50%. That was definitely a deal breaker in the past but tech enabled services have made it something that you can use a cleaning service and get away with maybe 10-20%. Let me know if you have further questions. 

Build your team, then you can build the empire. 

@Raja Gupta I've consulted many buyers interested in this market area. There are lot of things you'll need to do in order to find success. Since this market area is so saturated to answer your question: Pools? Game rooms? Theaters? Theming? Nice/upscale furnishings? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. You have to stand out. Size? Bigger the best. 6 or 7 BR at least.

Hitting 80% occupancy for a vacation rental is just shy of 300 days a year. That's almost impossible for this market area (Hawaii back pre-covid, Maui especially, could do that) and I'd challenge anyone to show me that I'm wrong. 

Having walked through dozens and dozens of assessments for a 3BR townhome in Disney area - I would say walk away since you're going to get yourself into a bad deal. Message me if you want to connect and chat further. 

After the COA/HOA fees get taken into account it's tough to make money with an entry level condo there. I'll mirror what @John Underwood stated. If you must get a condo stretch for one that's hitting: Great location, sleeps the most people (3BR) and great amenities. Seasonality is going to play a factor since Myrtle Beach area draws tourism March-October, November December little to nothing and Jan-Feb pretty much nothing. Just watch out for the COA fees!

@James Hamling That's pretty razor sharp.