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.
I purchased this property in August of 2019 so a little over 8 months ago. This property was going to be the first ever standalone real estate investment property I would be buying. Was I afraid? Hell yeah I was. Was I nervous that I was making a bad decision? Hell yeah I was. Did I second guess myself? Hell yeah I did. Here is the reality. It was the week of my 27th birthday and I was continuing on down a path to be financially independent through having a high savings rate and investing in the market. Nothing wrong with that. But I was comfortable. I wasn't taking any risks. I was playing things safe and I hadn't yet stepped up and made some big money moves in my life.
Real estate investment properties will teach you many things. Through my journey in purchasing 4 real estate investment properties I have learned many things. For each of my real estate investment properties I am going to outline some of the key learnings I had. Every day I continue to get more knowledgeable and get just a little bit better!
Time to do a full real estate investing strategy breakdown for each of my properties. I started giving a few teasers in my Highlights on instagram , but thought giving a more detailed breakdown on my…
It has been a wild journey with the Ol' Faithful HOA Saga. I have finally determined the final path forward with the HOA Dispute. This real estate investing journey is fun and continues throwing some interesting curve balls. If something like this would break you down, I would definitely say real estate investing isn't for you. I enjoy going through this process because it is a stepping stone and learning opportunity I am using to become a more experienced real estate investor. This isn't a short term play. This is a long term play to continue learning from all the situations my real estate investing journey takes me.
I just hit a huge milestone in my real estate investing journey of reaching $1.15 Million in real estate properties. What a wild and crazy journey it has been to this point. Things have continued to look more and more interesting in the real estate investing world with the current state of the US and world economies.
The HOA had their chance to email the homeowners to keep us up to date on all the things going on. Now time for some fun in my response back to them. Sometimes I feel the etiquette I have learned in drafting professional emails in work come out too much in these emails. I would love to deal with these things over the phone or in person, but the HOA and board have yet to want to speak in person or over the phone.
"A further update on our financial planning will be provided in the next few days but in the meantime, thanks to all who have already paid this quarter’s fees and to those who have not yet paid, please do send yours in as soon as possible, so that we can maintain sufficient cashflow levels, not only to protect your resort asset but just as importantly, to keep our resort and its residents, guests and staff, safe and secure through these difficult times."
I haven't decided to pay a lawyer just yet to look further into my case. There are a few different reasons I have not moved forward with the lawyer. Before we get into those, let's take a quick look at where we are at with everything going on. As a real estate investor, dealing with things like this will be a common occurrence. It might not always be a HOA that you have to deal with, but there are always things popping up that will cause issues.
It is finally time for legal advice from a local Florida attorney. Late last week, I had the opportunity to have a friend’s wife quickly review the information and provide her interpretation. It is now time to get a local attorney who is very familiar with the Florida law to provide their interpretation and guidance.
At this point, I am getting butterflies in my stomach each time a new email comes across. I have never gone through anything like this and the reality is I don't want to have to seek legal action against the HOA. The last thing I want to do is cause any problems or issues. My interpretation of the executive order is that I can rent my home out for more than 30 days. Again, I could be reading the document entirely wrong. I am not a lawyer and I don't plan to become one anytime soon.
I lawyered the s**t out of the final email to the HOA & Board. That is right. The last thing my friends lawyer told me was to send one last email to the HOA & Board. She high level outlined the different things to put in the email and then asked me to send it over to her for final approval. Let me just begin by telling you this. The final email was 100000000000 times better than the original email I put together. This is one of the benefits of knowing someone who has a wife as a lawyer! You can get some free legal council.
Here we go. So here is where we currently stand from yesterday. After I finished the conversations with Jose, I decided to go back to my place to do a couple of things. I proceeded to call the guests who were just turned away and apologize again for everything going on.
It is a very tough time in the economy we are living in today. There are 3 things I am doing in my short term rentals to generate revenue. They are outlined below with each of my properties. These are by no means the only things hosts can be doing during these tough times, but I have found them to be successful for me.
Had a large number of responses for this past guest I had stay! 75%!of people said I should not give Kristi a refund. For those who are getting caught up, this is what happened. This guest Kristi booked after Disney and all the parks in Orlando shut down. Her booking was after things continued to spiral out where more and more non essential businesses were shutting down.
New's came out late yesterday stating Disney World is set to close on 3/15 at close of business. What we are seeing in the world today is something that is unprecedented. At least I think so which makes for a timely post of this nature. There will be a significant impact to short term rentals in the coming weeks with no end in sight. This leads me to want to touch on and continue to remind myself.
In the month of December, I hosted 51 guests across 7 different bookings. Of the 7 stays, I received a review from each of my guests! Many hosts know getting your guests to leave a review can be difficult. I am also excited to say of the 7 reviews, all were 5 stars!
When analyzing a short term rental property, it is important to be able to estimate cash on cash returns. This allows you to understand whether something is a good investment or not. When you…
The ability to understand your expenses when analyzing a short term rental investment is critical. Income is only one side of the equation. If you are able to effectively understand your expenses, you will be able to put together projected cash flow numbers. This will help you determine if a property is worth investing in.
Analyzing a short term rental investment for cash flow is critical to know if there is financial sense to the property you are looking at. With that, I wanted to share the sensitivity analysis spreadsheet I have created to analyze a short term rental investment. Let's jump straight into analyzing a short term rental property with first understanding the numbers!
Want to know how to make your Airbnb guests feel like they have a connection with you from the beginning? What is the most amazing single word to any human being? Think about it for a minute. There…
