If you spend any time at all on social media, you probably hear people talking a lot about buying houses to invest in short-term rentals and what a great source of passive income that is. So you maybe thought, Should I buy a house and use it as a short-term rental? Let’s talk about some of the details that you might want to think about.
You may have heard the old saying, you know, you make money on the front end, not the back end. So if you’re looking at a house, to be a short-term rental, make sure that it’s not something that’s going to need a ton of work that’s gonna then price you out of that short-term rental market to recoup your money.
Also, make sure that if you are looking in an area that maybe you’re not as familiar with, you are familiar with, or get familiar, with the zoning laws and regulations or short-term rentals in that area. Because they don’t allow it and you definitely don’t want to buy something to use as a short-term rental, and only to find that you can’t.
If the property is not currently furnished, or if you don’t like the furnishings, then make sure that you’re calculating into your budget, all those furnishings that you’re going to have to put in to make it be fantastic. Because, you can get a great rate for a short-term rental, but not if it looks like everything came from you know, the goodwill.
When you’re doing your calculations, you also want to include things like who’s going to manage it, who’s going to check on it? What are the fees going to be? How is it going to get cleaned? Do you have an HOA in that neighborhood or area that needs to be paid? All of those little things get an idea of the utility costs, that sort of thing, and I have a great spreadsheet that you can plug all those numbers in. So if you want a copy of that or you want to get a little bit more information about buying a short-term rental owning a short-term rental, what to look for, and the do’s and don’ts. I’d love to talk to you happy to help and put you on the right track to finding out all of the information that you might need to know to make a decision if it is in fact a good call or if maybe you want to go another direction for your investment.