Time for a long overdue set of Financial Updates for each of my properties! I have been investing in short term rental properties for the past almost year now (along with house hacking) and I have tried to document my journey on my Instagram account. It has been a wild time with everything going on, but it is finally time to put all the numbers out there for everyone and anyone who cares to follow.
If you want to check out the update from February, click the link here.
Ol’ Faithful Financial March Update
Now time to dig into the numbers to see how March went for Ol’ Faithful. If you aren’t already familiar with Ol’ Faithful, checkout this link to read more about the property. March was an interesting month to say the least. A lot of information was just beginning to come out about the current pandemic we are in and how it would begin impacting travel was very intriguing.
Disney announced they would be closing on March 15th, 2020. This meant in the middle of the month, all of my guests would no longer be able to come to the area for the parks. The target audience for my short term rental business is people who are coming to the area for Disney. The month of March was impacted significantly. I had three guests cancel towards the end of the month and then I ended up dropping my prices by over 50%. That is when I had a fun guest book. If you don’t remember the whole cops being called to my Airbnb, you can read everything that happened at this link!
Anyways, here are the final numbers for March:
Income Stats
Overall, the income was pretty solid in March. This was mainly driven on a high occupancy for the month at 84%. I was able to get 26 of the 31 nights of March, but as you can see, the average nightly rate ($106) was much lower than previous months.
The main driver behind the lower average nightly rates was the decrease in prices I made due to COVID. It has been an interesting time for the hospitality industry. Especially in Orlando where the majority of our economy is driven based off the amusement parks. Once Disney announced they were closing on March 15th, that was a big hit to our industry as a whole. At the time of writing this post, Disney has yet to set out a path forward to reopen. Only time will tell.
Expense Stats
No crazy expenses to report out on this months total breakdown. There are two things I have added to the overall expense column. Taxes and Cap Ex account.
Taxes
The county takes 6% tax of your total gross income where I operate. Pretty simple calculation, but need to make sure you add it for properly calculating out your expenses.
Capital Expenditures
For now, I am putting this off to the side to handle any capital expenses that could come up throughout each month. The other month I was hit with a big $2.3k bill for replacing the pool pump. This capital expenditures account will essentially accrue and I will “pull” from it as expenses like that come up. This will help level load some of the capital expenses from understanding cash flow versus one month taking a big hit and then other months cash flow looking normal.
In future months, it will be more clear as to how exactly this will work.
Overall Cash Flow
Overall, the numbers for the month of March were okay for my property. Nothing spectacular, but all things considered, I am extremely grateful for being able to cash flow. All things considered you have to be happy with an up month during the midst of Corona.
Cash flow for the month ended at $579. Typically March is the beginning of the high season in Orlando for the parks. You have a lot of the people who are coming for Spring Break with the family to enjoy some vacation. Further updates coming to see the full impact of COVID on my short term rental business at Ol’ Faithful. It gets ugly…just wait.
