All Forum Posts by: Wilson Hunter

The market is tough if you're looking to min/max everything and utilize aggressive 10% down vacation or 15% investment loans. Like others are saying, there are cash offers everywhere, tons of very bad listings on the MLS that seem to still get sold fast, and a unique local economy that requires you to do some networking for contractors and cleaners if you don't want to get screwed. Also because of the nature of the market it can be tough to work with agents if you are trying to get elite level return, because you (reasonably) become a very difficult client compared to someone willing to scoop up some 8-9% gross return resort turnkey cabins with cash.

But this describes me - I just did 10% down on my first purchase in the area with a high bar for ROI expectations and am now looking for my second purchase. First 60 days of bookings have exceeded my most optimistic projections because I underestimated how much thinking outside the box can help you in this market. While level 1 thinking is to just do the stock template cabin because it's so easy and it works, I'm already a believer that setting yourself apart is valuable, even in this old school market. I know I'm getting the newbie platform SEO boost, but still - Superhost is easily achievable at the first review period if you make a fairly average effort, and it's not actually that hard to separate yourself from the pack on Airbnb if you just do everything you need to be doing to run a good business

Good luck hunting to everyone! Great to connect with a community of Smoky Mountain investors here.

Excellent blog! Thanks so much for this. I'm a new investor in the area and took about a year going through the new investor journey (devour content, analysis paralysis, get lending / agent in place, start making bids but no luck, finally win one, reno / pics, get STR team rolling, STR listing active / mission complete). I'm now looking for my second cabin.

I can see this being easy if someone has average ROI goals and is maybe looking for some stock resort cabin, but man your Cosby cabin story and other stories of how to truly get creative in this market show that there is a lot of room to increase your return, even with all the sharks in the water.

I bought my first when the OP created this thread and am now looking for my second. I look every day with instant alerts for my criteria, and there have been perhaps 3 cabins that I would personally have gone for in the past 3 months, whereas spring and summer were insane (took me 8 offers of losing bids to finally get one, extremely lucky with the one I ended up getting making an offer within 30 minutes on one that inexplicably decided not to set a bid date). I've seen a lot of these overpriced ones described in the OP, and they are always far from my ideal numbers, albeit I understand that's subjective. There's a lot of trash inventory at 650 price point, and you start seeing the projected ROI numbers get better around 800.

What I perceive has happened is that selling strategy shifted a bit with list price being more of a “let’s see if someone will go for this” rather than “I know this is under list but the strategy is to bid up 10-15% over.” There are a bunch of cabins right now that are 25% higher than what they would have been listed for in June/July. Good luck finding anything listed under $400k, for example, whereas the honeymoons were listed for 350/360 and going for 390-400+ cash in the late spring/summer. A literal tiny house might be listed at 399 now, but that’s it.

So while sure, there is softening on these bidding wars I think it’s directly related to a huge jump in price point late summer, but the market is still wild for the best best deals. My favorite listing in the last month had an insane bidding war no different than what you were seeing in the spring/summer.

Hi everyone,

STR noob question here... If I buy a property with intent to use as a STR that was also used as a STR by the seller, what happens with the days that are already booked and the cash that has already been collected for those stays? I see listings like "$70k already booked for 2021!" Is the buyer immediately paid 100% of the cash collected for these rented days at close?

Thanks in advance!

Helpful info. Thanks, guys.

As I talk to lenders about my plans that involve more than 10 mortgages, I’ve realized that I have to work with portfolio lenders, but I’m also learning that the loan products from portfolio lenders seem to have higher rates than conventional loans. Is that normal, or am I just not talking to the right portfolio lenders? 

Thanks, everyone!

Adding to the question from the OP - I'm a newbie with the same thoughts/questions - how long will lenders require you to wait in the scenario where you buy with cash and then put a mortgage on it after rehabbing and placing a renter? I've heard varying feedback on this...

Hi, everyone! I'm a longtime listener of the BiggerPockets podcast, and I intend to finally dive into buy-and-hold rental real estate investing this year.

I'm a technology business owner by day, and my goal with real estate is to invest in longterm cash flowing assets with great tax benefits. While I'm open to investing remote, I prefer to get started in areas I'm familiar with. Several target markets include Tri-Cities in East TN (Johnson City, Kingsport, and Bristol), Western NC (Boone/Blowing Rock or Asheville), Research Triangle in NC (Raleigh/Durham), and Central VA (Charlottesville - my current location, or surrounding area). I'm open to starting with either either multifamily or single family and am familiar with the pros and cons for both. I recognize that it's tough to scale single family, but I see that as a potentially great way to learn.

In addition to longterm buy-and-holds, I may be interested in exploring short term rental opportunities in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge or NC/SC beach rentals. I am prioritizing LTR first but am prepared to jump on the STR game if we see a vacation rental market crash in the next year from COVID.

Thanks for reading, and I look forward to getting to know the community here! :)