re: Beach Condo/Townhome Investment Property?

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I can tell you that if you are not within 2 blocks of the beach, I would guess you'll be luck to get 100 days a year of rentals. Especially if you don't have a pool.

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It’s beachfront and there’s a community pool. It’s nothing fancy, but I’d rent it for a couple's trip.

It’s not move-in ready which may be that “deterrent” everyone’s asking about. The previous owners started to do upgrades, and gave up halfway through, so the upgrades need to be finished. That’s why I guessed around $30k of upgrades needed.

Dont forget the cable and the A/C bill. Plus, they will pump that A/C unit until it breaks down.

1) Management company gives tenants directions for leaving the unit. What to set the thermostat is part of it
2) Cleaning crew is supposed to check it
3) The most effective, put a thermostat that you can monitor from your phone and adjust. I have that and will be adding the mechanism that shuts off the A/C when the patio door is open

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Dont forget the cable and the A/C bill. Plus, they will pump that A/C unit until it breaks down.

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LOL, that's not how it works but okay....

Its a rental property, that's no different than owning any other rental property as far as maintenance goes.

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It looks like it'd be profitable pretty quickly, and then PLUS, you'd have your own vacation home to visit whenever you'd like. What do y'all think? Ruin my dream for me.

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I looked into it a while back with the same thinking as you. Once I started figuring out all the different expenses and estimating when revenue/costs would actually be, I came to the conclusion that I should roughly break even on annual cash flow, but have to be prepared for possibility of a negative cash flow if major maintenance/repair items came up or if there was an event that led to a decline in bookings for a particular year (major hurricane hitting area or economic downturn). It was enough to deter me after I did a little research.

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I was discussing beach property ownership with a coworker once. His thought was, "why not buy a local property and use excess cash flow for your vacation?" and I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea.

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Great point. I'm really getting excited about Real Estate Investments lately, and I think y'all have successfully burst my bubble on vacation rentals, which is a GOOD thing! Maybe somewhere down the line, but definitely not for one of my first properties.