321: Short-Term Rentals Change & Market Profiles

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I've got Evan on the show today and we want to talk about here his short term rental property. Now I have maybe thrown out the teaser a few times listeners and I've said you gotta hear my thoughts on what the coronavirus pandemic means for Airbnb style VRBO short term rental investors. And I do have some pretty significant thoughts about that and so does Evan since he just recently closed on one. I thought he was the perfect person to come on and talk about this. Now, Evan, your new short term rental. We talked about it on the show where we exposed the reality, the wonderful reality that you are getting paid to borrow the money. Congratulations on that.

Yeah, I mean I feel like that deal could be life changing in the long term. I mean not only from quality of life that we can use that property in the future, but it is, it got such a great rate, only put 10% down. I mean, what could be better?

It's a pretty great deal. So if we go into a massive global depression for the next five years, like if the worst of the worst happens, let's just take that. First of all, you can literally sit with that property and either get paid to borrow or you can use the nuclear option. You and you can go and say bank, take it back. And your risk is the 10% you put down, right? The nuclear app, the return policy for real estate. We just did two episodes on that a couple weeks ago. But let's talk about the short term rentals now when you closed on that property. And by the way, this is in beautiful, charming St. Augustine, Florida. And listeners, just so you know, if you're interested in one of these, several of you have purchased these properties. We don't have too many of them. They're sort of a little bit hard to come by because you got to find one lot at a time on which to build. And our builder just hasn't had a ton of inventory on these. So we have maybe like two of them if you're interested. But I'm not even saying you should buy One what I do want to talk about, though is the broader short term rental market. Most of our investors, their strategy is not really short term rentals. It's long term buy and hold cash flow rentals, which is great and I think that is the best thing. But the short term market. Let's just talk about that. When you closed on that property just what, maybe a month ago.

Yeah.

Now you had bookings. A bunch of bookings, Yeah.

I think when I started, she had 13. On the day we closed, she had 13 future bookings.

She means your property manager.

It was great.

Okay, so you had 13 bookings and it was booked out for most of the next few months, as I recall you saying it was.

And not only that, it was really interesting. June and July were totally booked, not one free night. And I looked and basically two weeks ago, as of two weeks ago, maybe three weeks ago, I'll have to be exact, there were 26 bookings. 26. And now there are 19.

Okay, so does that mean some of the bookings have been used the last couple of weeks, like the person stayed there?

Two of them have been used and a few have been canceled.

Okay, a couple of them canceled. Did they give a reason for their cancellation? Was it coronavirus?

Yeah, I mean, that's pretty much. She told me that they're getting a lot of cancellations. Every cancellation, they're trying to rebook for a different time. That's their first approach.

But overall, you've still got a pretty good booking trajectory, it looks like, right?

Oh, yeah, it's terrific. What happened is what I've noticed how they're managing it. And she talks with me because I'm probably a more involved investor than some others, but essentially a lot of the people who canceled were the real ones that were coming up right now, this period of time, because this is part. This begins their high season. And so people canceled, but then they pivoted. And what they did is they started advertising as get away from the big cities during coronavirus.

Before you go into that, I'm surprised you say this is their high season. I mean, the high season is coming to an end. The Florida high season is the winter.

See, that's the beautiful thing about Saint Auburn State.

Oh, okay.

It has a different high season because it doesn't get as hot in that area as it does in other parts.

Yeah. So you're more northern Florida, which is one of the things I really like about it. Yeah, yeah.

No, summer and spring are their big seasons. The slowest season is fall.

I suppose it's much better to be there. And we're going to explain why we like this and think it will do better than. Some of the short term rentals have really just been decimated by the way. We're going to come to that. But here, I mean, I suppose it's better to be there in the summer than Hotlanta. Okay. If you have the flexibility to where you can go away for the summer. I'd rather be in St. Augustine than in Atlanta or Orlando, for example. Right. Which is easy drive to for sure.

And I think one of the things that makes it attractive in the summer is it's got a lot of educational stuff as America's oldest city. So a lot of families like to go there. It's kind of like Williamsburg, Virginia, that historical sense going there. So families come during the summer when there's no school.

Got it. Okay, go ahead with what you were saying.

Well, she just. Essentially I have a person there that's staying now for 11 days and it just started a couple days ago. And it's a lower price than normal. Typically the property manager uses dynamic pricing. So I think it would probably be around 250 a night right now. And I think it's ending up around 150. Obviously it'd be better if it were higher price, but at least it's being used. And it's still way more than enough to have some cash flow and cover the mortgage and pay the property manager fees. I think that's. It's obviously not as great as it would be, but there are ways to pivot to a different model. In fact, I'm seeing that all over that if you are somewhat near a big city, you can actually say, hey, escape the big city during coronavirus. And if you have enough, you know, if you're wealthy enough to be able to do that, you can go to one of these short term rentals. So that's what they've done. And so I keep close track and they're really working hard. You know, if you have the right property manager, especially in short term rental space, they can really make a difference. So that's what they've been doing. They've been pivoting. And I think I'm lucky that the short term rental I bought, I mean it was expensive relative to the other properties we sell through the network. But it's not like a million, $2 million proper by any means.

How much was it like 350?

No, 469.

Okay, so 469. And our typical properties, maybe I don't know, $120,000 or so nowadays or. Yeah, it depends on the market you buy in, but that'd be maybe an average. Okay, so here's the thing and my predictions as to how this is going to play out with this very unusual black swan era in which we are living right now. Okay, I think we will see longer bookings in short term rent rentals, but at lower rates. So basically you're bulk discounting your nights and you alluded to that earlier. You've got an 11 night booking but the rate is lower and I think typically you would have shorter bookings than that. So people are staying longer. I think that the short term rentals that are going to do okay or even quite well through this crisis are the short term rentals and where you've got a desirable destination either for vacation or business that's lower density than where people would be coming from. And also within driving distance. The driving distance is a key thing because obviously people don't want to get on airplanes, they don't want to get on cruise ships. And if they can drive from, say they live in a higher density environment in Orlando or Atlanta or any other area which would be drivable to your short term rental or anybody else's in other parts of the country with short term rentals, they can reduce their risk. They can be in a lower density environment. It's right now as we're recording this, it's springtime. So you know, they've had that spring vacation planned anyway and maybe their cruise got canceled or their trip on an airplane to wherever they were going got cancelled or they cancelled it because they just didn't want to feel comfortable getting on a plane and they want something they can drive to. So the key is if you have a short term rental that is within driving distance and offers something that the other population centers don't offer, that's the key. Let me give you a flip example of this, okay? I have a lot of friends and actually we've got a couple clients who own short term rental properties in San Diego area. Now those aren't going so well. And here, here's my take on that. Okay? So as the listeners probably know, I used to live in San Diego. It's beautiful place. Love San Diego. Unfortunately it's in the socialist Republic of California, which kind of ruins it. But, but I also used to live in Orange county just north of San Diego. And then I also used to live, or I grew up in Los Angeles just north of Orange County. So those three coastal Cities or counties along the Southern California coast. And the thing you have in San Diego is, number one, you have a lot of convention business, which is great when conventions are happening and now they've all been canceled and when people don't have to get on airplanes, but. But they usually do to come to a convention or a conference. So that has really hurt the San Diego short term rental market. So who would be your other tier of potential guests in your short term rental? Well, in San Diego they might come from the inland, but there's not that much population inland. There's more of it in places like Arizona where they might come from the Phoenix metro, but they won't come till the summer to escape the Arizona heat. Okay. And a lot of them do go to San Diego, very popular destination. So in the summer, the San Diego short term rental investors might have better luck than they're having now. And plus the virus might subside by then anyway. But that's another discussion. Here's the problem though, with attracting people from Orange county or Los Angeles. If you have a San Diego property, very common for people in Orange county or LA to go to San Diego to vacation and enjoy some time there. But right now, if you really look at the core offering of San Diego and you already live in LA or Orange county, it's not really that significant in terms of a difference. Louisiana and Orange county already have beautiful beaches. Okay. They already have ample recreational opportunities in both of those places. So if you're in a time of economic hardship, do you really need to go to San Diego? That's the problem. You don't have a strong compelling need. But if you're in St. Augustine and you've already got a family vacation planned and you can drive from Atlanta, Orlando or any of the other many destinations, people would go to St. Augustine. That's easy. And it also offers a real difference. Orlando is inland, Atlanta's inland. In St. Augustine you have the ocean. Okay. So there really is a unique selling proposition, if you will. Whereas you don't have that in a beautiful place like San Diego, okay. Which normally is highly desirable for short term rentals. So these are some of the things. So longer bookings at lower rates, you really want to have a short term rental property within driving distance of major population centers that are different from what you're offering. Okay. You have that in St. Augustine, which is very good. Any thoughts on those or other things?

That sounds exactly right. I think there are certain. I think I sent you an article about how the Hamptons is seeing lie level bookings right now it's close enough to New York City. It's on the ocean. There's a lot of Airbnb type properties there. These kind of areas I think are doing and we'll do through. I mean, as you always teach Jason, like, this might not be perfect for me getting a lower rate than I would anticipate, but it's certainly enough to make a small profit and get through. And that's what we all have to. We have to have the stamina to stay calm through the storms. And then once if you. That's what really kills people. They can't make it through the difficult times.

Exactly.

Will recover.

Real estate has always been a game of staying power. So if you can stay when others fold, you're really in good shape. And you know, to speak to that. Just a reminder for everybody that economics is a relative game. So compared to what is always the question, outrunning the bear in the woods. You're never going to outrun the bear. You only have to outrun your friend that you're hiking with. Okay, that's the story. So you just need to do better than everybody else and then, you know you're getting ahead even if you're treading water. I think overall there's going to be a lot of fallout in the short term rental market. I think that short term rentals are discretionary and that's obviously not going to be good for a lot of short term rental owners who are going to find themselves suffering. But I think you're pretty good where you are because of the things I talked about before. Driving distance to major population centers and also where you're offering a unique selling proposition different than those population centers and low density. The Hamptons offer that. If you live in New York City, people want to escape these high density areas. They feel like they're very much in danger in those areas, and rightfully so. I mean, look at the hotspots. Downtown Chicago, New York City, downtown New Orleans, San Francisco, Louisiana. These are all hotspots. All the hotspots around the world have one thing in common. High density, high density living. And that's what we want to avoid. And what we offer is an escape from that.

Totally. You know, in Chicago, one of the places people go in the summer is Michigan. They call it Michiana, which is where Michigan and Indiana cross over. And I was talking to a friend of mine and they are spending a week at a house out there. They probably end up extending it a little bit. But those houses, which are normally summer vacation homes, People are going to them right now. If they can work from home and they have a computer and an Internet connection, they want to get away from the big city.

Absolutely. And it's even better on your long term rental properties, as we've already discussed in my Pandemic Investing presentation, which by the way, this week, hopefully we'll be sharing access to that with everybody. Again, it's too long for the podcast. It's two and a half hours almost. So we will share a link for you where you can go and watch that, listen to it. It's video and audio. I think you'll really enjoy that. We are offering the option of long term low density living. As soon as this blows over, millions and millions of people all around the world, not just in the US Are going to exit high density living environments for the suburbs. And we've been recommending the suburbs for 16 years. Okay. So our investment is going to do very well with this. Evan. Anything else before we wrap it up and get to part two of today's episode?

No. It's always great to talk and to think through these and I'm grateful for your guidance and expertise and that the network makes a big difference.

All right, thank you very much. And let's go to part two. There is obviously a lot going on in the world and in the economy nowadays. Absolutely crazy stuff. We keep covering that. But I wanted you to hear from one of our boots on the ground, local market specialists as to what is happening in the construction industry. What is happening with supply demand parts. There may be some delays in new home construction, but it sounds like not with this vendor. So that's something to be mindful of. You know, I just read that about a third of new home construction materials come from China and that supply chain has obviously been interrupted for a few months. But it doesn't look like that will affect Jacksonville, Palm Coast Ocala or our Atlanta product, I'm hoping. Tell us more.

Yeah. Well, thanks, Jason. A couple of interesting things that I learned over the last six weeks. I guess I should have known before that, but all of our building supplies come from the US And Canada. So where a lot of supplies do come out of China. And then there can be good deals. We worked deals here in the North America continent and that's where all our supplies come from. So that keeps us going. Secondly, here in Florida, as you know, at this point, real estate construction has been deemed essential, same as grocery stores and pharmacies. So our guys are still outside working and building. You know, our building partners lines are Strong. Everyone wants to keep working. And with.

When you say, when you say lines are strong, what do you mean? Are you talking about credit lines?

Yeah.

As you know, you know, in our private conversations, unlike 2008, the banks are very well capitalized. So our building partners, building lines are, you know, still very strong. The banks are well capitalized. Yeah. So that's, that's a very good thing that keeps everyone building and going. And then also mortgages. We had a few closings this week already. It's a little tougher in California with lockdown to get that traveling notary. But they're doing some virtual stuff now to fix that.

You know what, one of the great things that's coming out of this, there are many silver linings here, folks, but thank God, it's about time some of these industries modernize. The idea of doing online notary, it's been around for maybe, I don't know, two years or so. There are some apps for that, to use the expression, but nobody uses it and it's too expensive and there's not many vendors in the field now. It's going to be mainstream, the cost is going to come down, it's going to be accepted, it's going to be simpler. And this is all just really good for the environment. The fact that the virtual meetings. One of the most primitive systems in the world, or at least the country, is the legal system where you can't appear by teleconference or phone a lot of times. And now that's modernizing. I've heard from my attorney friends, you know, so there's some really good stuff coming out of this amongst all the bad. And we've all heard all the bad news. So I just wanted to share that, but go ahead.

Yes, and with all of that said, you're absolutely right. This is updating. And another update, Jason, that's really good is keyless entry. So right now people are saying, well, how are you continuing to show with social distancing and that we had set.

Up show properties to potential properties and renters.

Potential renters is mainly our focus right now. And since they're new construction, they're vacant because they're the first people to move in, they're able to go. And with our keyless lock entry, they give their pertinent information, driver's license, there's a code given to them while they're there. They can go in for about a half an hour and then have to report when they check out. And that's been able to keep things going two weeks ago we filled 17 vacancies on our new construction coming out last week. This past week we filled 14. Now our average is normally about 18 is our goal a week. So we're a little lower but still moving quite well and that really helps. Or they're not having to meet a leasing agent or any, anything like that. So I've been pretty positive again, as you did. We survived 2008 and 9, 11. I look at things now to say, well, what are the real indicators on the ground? And what I'm seeing is we're considered essential. So we're still building since we have this modernization of keyless entry and able to do a lot of things online. Closings are still happening, deposits are still coming in on new renters, which is great. And luckily the negotiations we did was all with suppliers in the US and Canada. So we're not affected by the overseas stall.

Now the one thing I'm not totally sure about that because you know, those suppliers also source parts. They got a source parts from China. I mean, doesn't everybody? Or no. Or maybe they've got enough stuff on hand. You know, whether it be doorknobs or you know, there's a million ingredients to a house, right. You know, on hand to supply and overcome. I mean there's going to be about like a three month gap in production right from China's supply chain. So hopefully they got enough on hand to fill that gap and get over the hump. But any thoughts there?

Yeah, well, a few weeks ago we were kind of trying to be proactive so we actually over ordered a ton of stuff which came in. Yeah, we saw, we weren't sure and we're like, you know what, we're getting it. We're capitalized to do this. Let's over order. So we over ordered. So that gave us already a boost through several weeks. But then we also replaced orders there. So we're hoping to stay in front of, of the curve. They could be a trickle down if it's coming from China. But again our stuff was already here. It's not coming directly from there. So I'm hoping that that gives us a little more direct line. It might not. And if that distalls it a little bit, that's okay. Yeah, that's, that's not the end of the world. But there is. The good news is we're not shut down. Like, gosh, so many industries like restaurants and hospitality. I just, I really feel for them. I feel very, very lucky that we're considered essential, that the, that the modernizing like you said of, you know, being able to be virtual for sign and virtual now for even leasing. It's a good thing for all of us, I think, in the future.

Yeah, yeah. No, there are definitely some silver linings that come out of it. I was researching and the Economist had an article. They talked about four positive fundamentals amongst all of the scariness that's out there. Number one, strong household balance sheets. The typical American household is actually in pretty good shape. I know we all hear things about couldn't meet $1,000 or $400 expense, but most of those people aren't homeowners. Okay. It's kind of a different thing. Okay. Strong, typical businesses, strong balance sheets on average. The banking system, this is not at least yet a banking crisis. The banks have been, as we all know, very conservative as far as their real estate lending coming out of the Great Recession and incredibly low interest rates that are going to go lower. A little bit of an oddity in the mortgage market that is kind of nonsensical, but it'll even out, I'm pretty sure, very soon here in the next few weeks, where the Fed lowered its rate, but actually mortgage rates went up, which was odd. That's because of some different disruptions in their world that'll probably sort themselves out within a few weeks, I think. Any thoughts on any of that stuff?

Yeah, I think that rate, as you said, it's kind of weird. Just when the Fed slashes the rate, it doesn't mean it goes automatically down because bond markets, you know how that.

That works, they don't directly control mortgage rates, but they obviously influence it.

Yeah, very much so.

And.

Well, all I can. My thought on this, Jason, is, and I know you've been in the game even longer than me, 911 was a really sad time personally for me because I had lots of friends in New York and lost some in the Trade center. And I was in central California at the time doing a lot of real estate, and things went really crappy for about six weeks. And then all of a sudden, if you remember, they slashed rates. People were afraid of the markets and real estate just got flooded. And the rates, I remember what I considered good then for an investor loan rate then is considered super high now. So it's very interesting where I'm feeling like, oh my gosh, we can lock in at what rate for the next 30 years. I think people have to realize from my 21 year experience, this has never been seen. Even at nine, 11 times, the rates were two and a half points higher, probably. And that was considered great.

That's why I said the other day on the show, four things to keep in mind. Number one, stay calm. Cooler heads always prevail. Keep good counsel. And Jim, you and I both do that. We're involved in several mastermind groups and so forth, and we're talking to people with good counsel. Number three, keep your eye on the ball. And that means the long game. Okay. This will pass possibly in like six weeks. Okay. You know, it may pass incredibly fast. And when I say pass, I don't mean it totally goes away, but it goes away as a major story, a major obstacle, you know, a major concern and things start to get back to normal. But then you've still got three decades. I mean, say it lasts for a year. You've still got 29 years of incredibly cheap mortgage that you've locked in and nobody else can get if rates are higher at that time. And then number four, after, keep your eye on the ball. You know, play the long game. Take action and you know, make good, careful decisions, but don't be paralyzed into not making decisions. Yeah, good. Give us some updates if you would, specifically on markets. Jacksonville, Palm Coast, Ocala, Atlanta Products.

Yeah, everything is still moving really well. As you know, we price our new construction very fairly. And people say, well, how can you prove that the way I can prove it? I'm proud to say a lot of our appraisals are coming in over. Our first duplex in Palm coast that just completed came in $35,000 above the asking price, which was great. That's, you know, there's the good, the good and the bad for our new construction, you know, average wait 6 to 12 months. But since we're locking in at a very fair price, rates are lower than what we estimated and values are normally higher. We don't depend on that. But a lot of our clients have been very happy to see when their appraisals come in over. So we are still seeing real strength there. There's an equalizing of, I think areas like an Ocala are going to be even more attractive to people wanting that simple lifestyle. And we've seen that with the high rate of the leasing time, we are.

Already seeing a lot of thought out there of people leaving high density environments interested in moving to suburbia. Because in suburbia you are dramatically safer. You can easily socially distance. And we look at what's going on now, sadly, in New York City and it's just tragic. So this is going to be a huge trend. I think I was one of the first People to predict it as we. As we see people wanting and desiring these types of properties. You know, one area that we really haven't, although our clients are buying and investing in this area, but we really haven't talked much about it, is the Palm Coast. And I'd like you to just speak to that a little bit. You and your wife got engaged there, which is really cool. It's a beautiful area, of course. And this is the Palm coast of Florida we're talking about.

Yeah, just below. I consider it greater Jacksonville.

Really.

Yeah, it's kind of greater Jacksonville. It's just below St. Augustine. It's always been a very popular area for northerners to come down to. It's got an economy based around Jacksonville, which is not far. And the values and the desirability has been very high. Meaning that. I'm sorry, the. The affordability index has been very high in good consideration for us, especially being a coastal county. And it's just been really good to us. The rents are strong. People are wanting to live there again, it has a little more of that sprawl you're talking about, but plenty of amenities within close range. So I've always been a fan of Palm Coast. The issue, Jason, kind of like Ocala. There wasn't really good rentals there. So stepping into this new construction again has been a really good move for us because we're providing things that look much better than the small amount of alternatives.

When you say that, you mean for investors to buy them and renters to rent them.

Exactly.

It goes both ways. And one we could have never seen is it's a lot easier to show a vacant property right now than an occupied. Because if someone's living there and we're doing social distancing. Oh, wow. Well, we're not wanting to come in. We don't want to do that now. They have this space and this comfort to do it. But I've always loved Palm Coast. Honestly, when I got engaged there many years ago, I thought it was too highly priced to be able to find the deals, and there just wasn't a lot of housing. So I was such a fixer upper guy. But now getting into some land deals the right way and the demands being there, I mean, they are probably two years behind on housing needs today. That gives us a really good wind at our back.

So you've got that shortage. Okay, good stuff. Well, hey, thank you for the update on this. And of course, Jacksonville, a perennial market for us. We've been doing business there a long time. Ocala, Atlanta But I just wanted you to mention specifically Palm coast because we hadn't talked about it much before. Thank you so much. Happy investing, Be safe, stay well, and we'll look forward to having you back on the show soon. Any of our clients can reach out to us@jason hartman.com or call 1-800-hartman we'll be glad to connect you and help you with any of these properties in these markets, as well as some short term rental opportunities. We don't have many of those and many of them around the world have been really devastated. But we've got a market that's kind of insulated from some of those problems that I think is performing very well even through this crisis. And we'll talk about that another time. Too long for this show. But thanks for joining us.

Thanks, Jason.

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