Short-Term Rentals, Real Talk: Lessons from 6 Years Hosting & What Smart Investors Are Doing Next

I’m pulling back the curtain on how we got started in real estate investing.  Spoiler alert: it all began with an Airbnb in our backyard. In this minisode, I’m sharing the behind-the-scenes of our six-year journey with short-term rentals—from building our ADU to navigating Portland’s ever-evolving STR laws, managing (and outsourcing) guests, and yes... restocking way too much toilet paper.

If you’re thinking about turning your space into a short-term rental or just curious about how STRs actually work, this episode is packed with honest insights, lessons learned, and practical tips for new and seasoned hosts alike. I’m also diving into what I believe is the next wave for real estate investors—and why the Airbnb model may not be the golden ticket it once was.

Here are the top takeaways from this episode:

1. Start with the Worst-Case Scenario to Run the Numbers

Before falling in love with Airbnb income projections, ground yourself in financial reality. Ann recommends always asking: Would this property still make sense as a long-term rental?

2. Know the Rules Before You Buy (and Expect Them to Change)

Short-term rental success isn’t just about aesthetics and occupancy—it's about legality. Understanding permitting, zoning, taxes, and even HOA restrictions can make or break your investment.

3. STRs Are Seasonal, Hands-On, and Require Replenishable Inventory

Cash flow might be stronger than long-term rentals, but you’re essentially running a mini hotel. STRs require ongoing expenses, restocking, and attention to comfort and cleanliness.

4. Property Management Isn’t All or Nothing, Find a Hybrid Model

If you don’t want to be glued to your phone managing guest check-ins, consider hybrid options. Tech tools and part-time managers can help balance profitability and peace of mind.

5. Trends Change, Be Willing to Evolve

Market cycles matter. Ann reminds us to zoom out and consider new models like midterm rentals or co-living before jumping into saturated strategies.

Want to learn more about real estate investing? Hop on the waitlist for the Soulful Investor Society, a community membership for real estate investors and those who'd like to get in the game. Once on the waitlist, you'll be the first to know when the doors open AND you'll get lots of amazing freebies, including a FREE 1:1 coaching session with me, where we'll map out your plan from start to finish, so you can finally buy that investment property and scale your portfolio. 

You can also find me on IG @annreedandco where I share daily musings on real estate, mindfulness, being an almost empty nester, and more.

Transcript

Welcome  to A Few Good Doors, a podcast created to show you just how possible investing in real estate is for most Americans and how it can be an incredibly powerful tool for creating wealth over time. Do you feel like it's too late or you don't have enough money? Listen up. If you can qualify for one mortgage, I can show you how to become a real estate investor.

Once you embrace the how and the why, you can repeat the process. Acquiring four or more properties over the course of 10 to 15 years Can and should have a massive wealth effect. I believe that everyone deserves to live up to their full potential and having good people with money is what will change the world.

I'm your host, Ann Reed, and my mission is to help you make the world a better place with a few good doors of your own. 

Ever wondered how we got started in real estate investing? Spoiler alert, it all began with an Airbnb in our backyard. In this mini sode, I'm sharing the behind the scenes of our six year journey with short-term rentals from building our A DU to navigating portland's ever-evolving short-term rental laws, managing and outsourcing guests.

And yes, restocking way too much toilet paper if you're thinking about turning your space into a short term rental. Or just curious about how short-term rentals actually work. This episode is packed with honest insights, lessons learned, and practical tips for new and seasoned hosts alike. I'm also diving into what I believe is the next wave for real estate investors and why the Airbnb model may not be the golden ticket It once was.  

I should just say that I have invited my friend, my podcast editor, my assistant, all wrapped into one human being to have these conversations for these minisodes with me because I find that it's easier for me to get the information out of my head and

out to the public in a more natural way. We're going to be talking about short-term rental, which I'm super excited to talk about because it is the way that we got started in real estate investing. As a teaser, I'm gonna say I, my thoughts about short term rental have evolved as we've gone down this path. I think we're heading into, we're in our sixth year of doing it. So I'm excited to have the conversation about short term rental. I can see it going in a lot of different directions. 

So short-term rentals, for anybody that's listening is your Airbnb, VRBO, HomeAway, Vacasa, those kinds of things. Rentals for under 30 days. In, in the city of Portland.

Usually if you talk about short-term rentals, nationwide, less than 30 people understand it's the Airbnb. We'll call it either STR or Airbnb. Basically what you're doing is being a hotel for people, which can be very lucrative, but it's also hands-on. 

A hundred percent. There's a lot to say about short-term rental. I will say what you just said it tends to be the most lucrative type of rental and can be a good, springboard for getting into real estate investing.

Because you can, acquire more, more quickly. It can help your numbers pencil out more. Like you can have more cash flow with the right short-term rental, I should quantify. For us, that was part of it, we wanted something that would accelerate our. Real estate and journey financially.

What we did is took equity out of our primary residence and built an A DU, which is an accessory dwelling unit or a tiny house guest house, cottage, casita. All of those things are. Could be potentially considered an A DU.

And we did it with a totally different motivation, which was to have something that if my parents or any other family member ever needed to move in with us, there was a space available.  it's a full little house, so it's got a full kitchen with a range, dishwasher, refrigerator, all of that full bathroom, bedroom, living room.

And so we did it for that and figured that once it was built, we could rent it out on Airbnb and have it pay for itself until somebody needed it, if that ever happened. And if it didn't happen, then well,  yay us we're, we have this new revenue stream.

The other things though, to know about short term rentals is.

One, it's a little bit harder , it's not steady income. It's very seasonal. I constantly have people ask me like, what's the nightly rate? It's like, well, what night? What night do you want? Because that fluctuates. The same as when,  people ask like, well, what's the monthly income on that?

It's like, which month? 'Cause it varies seasonally. And I think that's the case in most areas. We're not in a highly touristy area, like a beach town or something like that. But even so, we have a much stronger months in the summer when Portland is an amazing place to be. Short term rental also. So you have that benefit of, it's a, it's a much typically, at least twice as much as what you would get for a long-term rental of the same property, which we have found to be true. I had heard that and now having had a short-term rental, I can say yes, it's definitely at minimum two times what a long-term rental income numbers would be.

It is, as Miriana stated, it is also more work, more hands-on. But you don't have to be the person that is managing your property. There are managers that can take care of that for you. There's a lot of different services that can be included in that. But typically an Airbnb manager charges between 20 and 30% of your income.

And they'll typically take care of your bookings. Any guest requests or problems? To a certain extent. Sometimes they have to get the owner involved because it's, could be an expensive fix or, maybe they just, I don't know. There's, there is sometimes when the property manager has to get you involved.

They also will take care of usually the cleanings and whether they are doing it themselves or they're hiring a company to do that. They take care of keeping track of inventory. In a short term rental, it's a furnished rental. So that's something to consider upfront.

You have the ex the added expense of decorating it and adding furniture and you definitely have to be considerate of comfort. You have to be considerate of wearability. You don't wanna put a white sofa in a Airbnb.  Typically. But the, the Airbnb manager will keep track of also stuff.

When I say inventory. I just learned this actually. I mean, I've experienced it, but I didn't know the number, but there's usually like a 30% of your linens will go away. You have to just expect that 30% of that inventory is going to need to be replaced every year.

Without having tracked every towel and  pillowcase, that seems like a very legit number based on, what I've seen.

You also have toilet paper, paper towels, soap laundry soap if you have that in your unit. Coffee, tea, if you want to provide those, which I think you should. Coffee filters, dishwasher pods, like all of those things. And an Airbnb manager should be keeping track of those things and letting you know when they need to be replenished.

On a recent episode I interviewed Justin Ford and he was primarily talking about like the safety things that you should have in place.

 But he works for a platform called Breezeway and they have what I'm actually interested in checking it out, I haven't yet. But they also have a software app that will help you communicate really easily with your, whether it's an Airbnb manager or cleaners or  whatever, where they keep track of all of those inventory types of things.

And there's checklists on there, so. I may be doing a follow-up episode to this once I check it out, but that also seems like maybe you could have an in-between where if you don't want to be a hundred percent the manager, but maybe you don't want to pay the 25, 20 to 30% for an Airbnb manager. That might be a good in between. Those are some of the considerations on the finance side of things.

The other thing you really have to consider with short-term rental is local rules and regulations around short-term rentals. Whether they're allowed,  how they're allowed  what kind of permitting do you have, what kind of taxes do you have to pay.

I'm actually super grateful. There's, there's not a lot of times that I say I'm grateful for the city of Portland, but I am grateful that they collect all of the travel and lodging taxes through Airbnb so that I don't personally have to take care of that.

There's different things you have to consider. If you were looking in a city that you're not familiar with, whether it's where you live or,  a lot of people buy this type of rental property in an area that they like to visit.  I would not only check the current rules and regulations and laws, but I would really dig into like, are there any,  sort of rumblings that maybe things could be changing in the near future.

Maybe there's city council meetings that it's been brought up. I, I would dig into that for sure, just to see,  what, what might be coming down the line as far as permitting and whether it's legal or not.

I have a friend who actually bought a property in Palm Desert to use as an Airbnb, got it all furnished and ready to go.

And then the pandemic hit and the city of Palm Springs changed the rental rule. Like they said, we're not doing any more permitting. She didn't have her permit yet, and so then she had this furnished rental that she couldn't use the way she intended use it. So that leads to my next point what would you do with the property, if Airbnb short-term rentals were to go away completely? 'Cause it can happen. There's usually some indication that it's going to happen. But in that case, there really was, I mean, I think it had been talked about, but it was like the pandemic was really, I think the trigger that kind of sealed that deal more quickly than people anticipated.

For me personally. And I know some people disagree with this train of thought, but partly because of where I live my, well, at least this is, this is how I thought of it when we were just like everybody else. Like I wasn't always an investor, I had to do my due diligence and then make decisions based on the information that I  gathered, but I didn't know. I didn't know how much we were gonna make. I just had numbers that indicated what was possible. So what I did was I was like, okay, if Airbnb went away completely or we hated it, or  whatever, what would be my worst case scenario? Because in this situation,  I have this essentially extra house on my property. It's not like I can sell it. I mean actually I could if I, but I'd have to go through the process of condo it and I didn't even know that at that time that that was a possibility. But what is my worst case scenario if we can no longer Airbnb it and we don't have anybody living in it.

And for me the worst case scenario was long-term rental. So I based all of our numbers and decision making off of that worst case scenario of if it had to be a long-term rental. Does it still make sense? And thankfully it did. 

Another thing to take into consideration is  the impact of how many short-term rentals are where you are looking to buy, invest, or where you live. 

Yeah. '

If you're on a block where there's 20 houses and 12 of them are already Airbnb, that, that's not gonna work as well for you. 

Yeah, you definitely can have oversaturation which is what I think you're talking about.

 I mean, it's plausible that that depending on the exact situation that could work in your favor. One, if you're the best one of all 12, then you'll probably get,  a lot of business. The other thing is if you have more of a collaborative mindset   an individual mindset,   you could collaborate with those other  airbnb owners and say like, Hey,  I noticed that you have an Airbnb close by.  so do we. This is what we have, this is what you have. Sometimes families travel together and maybe they want to be close together without being in the same space. So it's not an automatic deal breaker.

But yes, you definitely want to consider it. And obviously, and this is one of the things that I alluded to in the beginning of this conversation, is the market can also change for,  right now our economy there's a perception anyway there's a lot more, I think, fear in our economy right now.

People aren't spending as much money with,  what I would call disposable income to travel and  there's, there's that to take into consideration too, that you could start out,  gangbusters with a really thriving business, and then the, the economy can change. There's a lot of things that can change which is just important

I will talk about a whole bunch of different types of rentals and scenarios and things like that. At the end of the day, what I'm always hoping for, whether I'm representing you in a real estate transaction, whether I am coaching you on how to invest, is get as much information as you can and make the best decision possible for you based on that information.

That's really what it comes down to. And my job, I feel like by having these kinds of conversations is to maybe point out something. It's like you don't know what you don't know. And so trying to help you thoroughly think through as much as possible, the pros and cons. And I talk a lot about exit strategy too, regardless of what kind of property you have. 

We've done Airbnb two ways. The first way we hired a property manager for that and that worked out fantastic. She was fantastic at what she did. And she made sure that everything was taken care of.

And then the second way we took on the managing of the AirBnB ourselves. It, it is a lot of work. Yeah, it is rewarding. And you're right in that there are seasons, especially here in Portland, it's seasonal because nobody wants to visit us in January or February, I'm sorry. But the rest of the year, you're right, there are fluctuations in prices. Just like, there are fluctuations in hotel pricing. 

Yeah. 

So you need to decide when you want to do a short-term rental, if you wanna be hands-on or not. There is a hybrid of how to do it as well,  but I like how in your other episodes of podcasts that you have to have toolboxes of what to use when you have a short-term rental. Let's talk about some of those toolbox that are in your arsenal for having a short term rental. Starting with, of course, the purchase of it. 

The purchase of a short term rental. I guess I can say some things generally, which is kind of what I would say in a lot of purchase situations.

But let's just talk about investing in real estate. What I can't help you with is knowing specific numbers or scenarios in locations that I don't work in or   I'm not familiar with. So if you are in an area that is not one that I'm familiar with, I will say that I have people all over the United States and even globally that we can work with to get you the, the local expert for investing. But as far as purchasing a short term rental I'll just talk about Portland.

So in Portland, the options for short-term rental would be currently there's two types of permits. There's a type A and a type B   short-term rental permit. The Type A permit is what most people have. It is for up to two bedrooms and up to five guests, so that's what you can rent. With that being said, you do have to have an owner occupied home or property, I should say.

Or you can also have, if you are in a commercial zone, you can change the use of a property to hotel motel use. And then you don't have to do the, the permitting, the short-term rental permitting. And then there's a type B permit that allows for more people and more rooms. But that one is really expensive to get.

And to be really honest, I haven't really looked. Too much into it because for me it was a, a little bit of a hard no when the city is asking you to do, traffic studies and  all of these kind of expensive things with no real guarantee. Like you could spend $10,000 on something and then have them say no.

That's not for me personally, not really  worth it. All of that to say in the city of Portland, my ideal property would be a two bedroom, one bath home with an I with an a DU already in place or the capability, like it has a nice flat yard, easy to add an a DU to it.

And then what I would do, which most people think, oh, so you would put the, you would make the A DU into the Airbnb to which I would say not automatically.

I would run the numbers on  what, for that particular area does it look like I could get for the two bedroom versus if I had a one bedroom. I guess if I had a two bedroom A DU, then maybe, but. I would be running numbers on what does long-term. I always start with long-term rental. So does this, going back to what I said earlier, does this property make sense as a long-term rental?

And I think, oh shoot, I think I said earlier, owner occupied, it does not have to be owner occupied. In the city of Portland, you have to have a long-term resident. So that could be another renter. You could have a long-term renter as your resident on the property, they just have to agree to sign some paperwork and give a copy of their driver's license. So that is a correction.

But I would run numbers as long-term rental first, and then kind of knowing this is like,  10,000 foot level view. If the long-term rental numbers look good, then I can guesstimate that if I double those numbers, that's likely what I would get for short term rental and then I start looking into it a little bit,  if that all seems good.

You also have to factor in like, does the property need work? Am I gonna have some capital expenditures above and beyond,  furnishing the place to get it ready because  for a successful Airbnb, it needs to be what I would call a design that is aspirational. People want to stay in a place that maybe is a little bit more elevated than what they live in. That's to me, what is the most successful, it's almost like in real estate when we have a listing and we stage it, it's like everybody knows. Everybody knows that that's not how we live. But we really love the idea of living that way. And that's the aspirational. So we get that idea like, oh, I can see myself living in this home based on this aspirational design.

And 99.9% of people don't live that way 'cause they have stuff . That's kind of how I would start running my numbers. And then you factor in  here's some of the things that I would factor in. There's utilities. If I was buying a property, I would ask the seller,   their utilities are for the property.

If you have separate units let's say you bought a place that already had an A DU.      Something to note is sometimes ADUs have their own water and electrical service and sometimes they don't. Either way, if you're running a short term rental, you're not going to,  can't really divvy that up per guest and have them pay for that.

So you just have to know what your utilities are. I would say add. Maybe even,  to 25% more onto those bills if you get those from the homeowner. Because people on vacation, they don't, I don't know if it's intentional or not, but they don't care where the heat and the AC is set. They don't care how much water they're using.

They'll wash a washcloth and the use a full laundry, do a full load of laundry. So your bills are typ typically more than they would be with just a regular renter, and you would be paying those. So I'd factor that in.

  have to factor in for short term rental, which is different than most long-term rentals and even most other furnished type of rentals. You don't have as much what I would call inventory. That you have to factor in. So to me that's a big one, is toilet paper, paper towels, shampoo, conditioner, body wash, hand soap, dish soap,  dishwasher pods if you're using them, or dishwasher, soap coffee, tea. For us, we provide coffee, tea olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and, again with Justin Ford. He recommended he, the way he said it, I thought was very cute. He said you should have everything to make chocolate chip cookies, except for the chocolate chip, eggs, and butter. You can have some vanilla, you can have some flour, some sugar. I don't personally have those because I personally get a little   ed out thinking of somebody else's hands scooping out flour and sugar. And I just don't wanna have to deal with it. But that's a personal choice.

Either way, whatever you decide to put in there that is consumable you need to factor in. That's another thing that I think people, especially toilet paper. I feel like Airbnbs use more toilet paper than normal people do. So you have to factor those things into your costs. And then,   got all of your linens, bedsheets, towels, washcloths, and we were talking about how you can expect 30% of those to be ruined beyond using them anymore.

And keep in mind that they're still usable. It's just you have to be really, really, particular about what you're,   putting back on the, the bed. So even a little stain that is like a, I don't know, like a, what can I say?

Yeah. Makeup stain on sheets.

We have had to get rid of sheet sets and comforters and duvets that had makeup on it because. Yeah, a lot of people are using full body makeup now. 

So even, I mean, even if you can get most of it out, but you can still see, 

nobody wants to use a towel that's already got a stain on it, or sheets that have stains on it. So you have to replace those. That's, that is the cost of doing business as a short term rental. 

For sure. 

We haven't honestly had a ton of issues with any of the big ticket items like furniture and things like that. I don't think we've really, we've had a couple of little not super expensive accessories that have been broken by guests. To me that's like not that big of a, a factor.

But we also do need to take into consideration is maintenance and so, just like you have regular home maintenance on your own home  should be taking care of your furnace filters or,  we have the mini splits. You have to take care of those.

You should be setting money aside for,  even on our A DU that was completed in 2019. Mm-hmm. At some point, hopefully not in the near future, but at some point we're gonna have to replace the roof  that's a long way down the road.  stuff does get worn  out eventually, just like on any home.

And then there's stuff that you should be doing, like you probably do for your own home. Maybe you do a deep clean instead of just the regular clean. And if you're not doing it yourself, then you're paying somebody more than you would for just a turnover clean on that. I think that's probably a good idea to do, just to, to keep things nice.

But people bump the walls and the trim and stuff like that, so you'll get scuffs and some point you should go back in and touch those up. So there's that kind of maintenance. And then there's also, if you have any kind of a yard that should be maintained. Our neighbors have some big trees that drop a lot of needles into the gutters. The gutters need to be cleaned out several times a year to keep that functioning properly.  I usually recommend to people for all of those things to set aside like one to 2% of the purchase price per year.

So like, when we built our A DU, it cost us a little over a hundred thousand dollars, so we should be putting at least one to $2,000 a way,  a reserve for maintenance every year. And likely in the beginning when it's a new build like  that might not be using very much of that. You're just using it for some services and stuff like that. But when it does come time to replace a roof or whatever, we don't wanna be  short. We wanna be able to pay for that.

And the regular upkeep and maintenance of things such as cleaning out if you have a washer and dryer, the, the dryer vents and making sure that that's lint free in the dishwasher, you need to pull out that filter and make sure there's nothing that's,  up in there. If you have a garbage disposal, you need to clean those. The things that you do on a living in the house basis that you don't think about, you need to set aside time or a person to do those things at, at your Yeah. As short-term rental.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Cleaning the tops of fans. 

Cleaning the tops of fans, replacing light bulbs,  batteries are another big thing. Replacing batteries in remotes in,  if you have a keypad, punch locks I would suggest having those, I would suggest having a security cameras, which you have to disclose, but I think it's a good idea to have, so, yeah. And 

security camera. We're talking about security cameras at the front door. Yeah. Not, there's no security camera in the house. Not 

inside. No. 

We're talking about security cameras, like at the front, like your ring doorbells and that sort of thing. Those, yeah. Need to be charged up once every two to three months.

Yep. Depending on activity. Yeah, we have one that it runs outta batteries really quickly because of squirrels and different things. It's like, goes off a lot because it's capturing that motion. But so yeah, I all of that is pulling together your numbers.

The other thing that, would be remiss in not mentioning is factoring in your occupancy rate. So,  a long-term rental, you also have occupancy rates, but  most of the time you'll get a year lease. And so there's very little chance that you're,  like you might have some time in between renters that you are not getting paid rent. That a lot different with short-term rental. But even so the numbers still the income, it still comes in much higher than long-term rental, even though you might have more vacancy.

 So those are the things. And then the other stuff that I would look at is super just like I would look at any other  purchase, The  condition of the home or property have it inspected. I would make sure that during your inspection period that you're gathering all of that other information too,  about city regulations, another big one which I sometimes forget to mention because they're not super prevalent where I live. At least not in the part of town that I live. But a lot of HOAs won't allow short-term rentals at all. So you need to make sure that you're buying in an area that allows it not just the local jurisdiction, but your particular HOA.

I can think of a million different scenarios. But, if you're in an HOA, just really, really, this is mentioned in another episode, but really have somebody dive into those documents for you and look at your bylaws. For example, like I stayed at my aunt's condo in Maui and didn't realize that it was against their HOA to hang towels on the balcony, like anywhere on the balcony to dry. And we had five people, three little kids, and it's like, where the heck do you dry your towels? Are we supposed to just stick 'em in the dryer? Which is what we  ended up having to do because the front office actually called us and we're like, could you please take the towels off the balcony?

So those kinds of things.

There could be other things that aren't allowed that you wouldn't know if you didn't take a look at those documents and maybe they're not a big deal, but maybe they are, and you wouldn't wanna find out after you've closed on the property that it, that there's something in there that is a big deal to you or that you foresee would be a big deal to your guests.

So as with all the other subjects that we've tackled, having the toolboxes to help you with a short-term rental are very vital. Knowing your city and state or municipal codes so that you're not breaking any rules, ensuring that it will pencil out for you if that's what you end up buying into.

If it's an HOA, having somebody look at the HOA rules and regulations and making sure that you can do what you would like to do with that short-term rental. And then deciding for yourself whether you want to manage it yourself or you want to pay for a property manager to take care of it, and then being aware that you need to set aside money for things that will go wrong with this rental.

Right, a big tip that I've shared with a lot of people that a lot of times when I share it, it's like an aha moment is a really easy way to get a lot of information if you, because your inspection periods are not usually that long. So sometimes it can be really arduous to be trying to call the,  city, the county, the  trying to figure out all of these things. What I recommend doing, whether you live there or not, if you're diving into a market that you haven't been in before and you wanna do short-term rental the fastest way, I feel like, to get the information that you need both on,  price, occupancy, local rules and regulations is to interview, like I would go straight to like interviewing three to five property managers that do short term rental property management, and they should be on top of all of that. They should be able to run the numbers for you. They should be able to,  tell you  about the rules and regulations. Oftentimes they'll even know stuff about particular HOAs if they manage several properties if you're in an area that has a lot of that. So that can be a really good resource. And if you're not planning to manage it yourself, you're one step closer to knowing who you would want to manage your property.  Some of the things for property managers in certain areas, like if, if one of the things that I would love to do someday is have a condo or a place in Hawaii. But I also want to use it, right? Like, I want to be able to use that for my personal use and have it be paid for by  guests.

Some property managers limit the amount of personal time that you can stay in the property, which makes sense.  they're trying to make a living, managing the property, and if you're in it all the time, then that kind of defeats the purpose for them. Just having those conversations can one help you get the information that you need to make a decision, but it can als about buying the property, but also have you a few steps ahead on knowing who you might wanna hire to manage it if you're going that direction. 

And probably one of the things that a lot of people don't know or understand when we talk about property managers, they get paid by the booking, not by the month, by the booking.

It depends, it depends on how you set it up. You can set it up however you want. I paid when I had somebody managing my Airbnb. I paid monthly,  and that particular manager did the cleaning, so it was like, here's the cleaning fee, like here's the total for the month, here's what the cleaning fee was, and then you get a percentage off of the total minus the cleaning fee.

That's what that percentage was based on. So it, you can set it up however you want. 

I just wanted to explain why there would be a limitation on owners in their short-term rentals and that that is why, because it, it makes less money for the property manager. Is there anything else you wanna close off with before we sign off on short term rentals?

So one of the things, and it is market specific, but I have been following the market locally as well keeping my finger on the pulse of short-term rental in general. And I do think that there's a consensus that short-term rental is sort of,  definitely not as great as it was in like 20 21, 20 22. What I've seen locally is a lot of short-term rentals switched over to midterm rentals, and I think there's a lot of reasons for doing that. One, the city cracked down on illegal short-term rentals. So there were a lot of people that didn't  either have the proper permits or things like that.

 Then they had a property and they're like, well, midterm rental is the next best thing, which I would agree it is. I would even venture to say, and this isn't just me saying this there's some other investors that I follow, I think midterm rental in the city of Portland. This is me saying this, not other people, but midterm rental in the city of Portland, I think is getting saturated.

There's a lot of midterm rentals in the city, which translates into competition.  more there are, the more you're competing. So I think that there are some potentially better options if, if your goal, I mean you have to always start with what do you like, what is your reason for investing in real estate or having an investment property?

It's not always making the most amount of money for everybody.  for some people they want a tax write off. For some people, they want to have a property. They see the value in having a property, but they really kind of wanna set it and forget it. They're probably better served by having a long-term rental that they can,  have to think a whole lot about and not have to put much effort into.

So you have to really start with that. But if you're looking for,  maximizing your rental income and cash flow, I do think that some of the co-living options like pad split, I think could be better options moving forward. And here's what happens a lot. And this isn't just in real estate, right?

People will see a trend. Everybody, like when we were getting into short-term rental, everybody I talked to was like, oh yeah, we wanna do that, we wanna do that, we wanna do that.  It's 'cause it was proven, you know what I mean? Like, it was proven at that time that this was a, a good thing to do in most areas.

I think your better bet is to get on the upswing of something. And that's where I feel like co-living spaces, like pad split are sort of on   you're at the beginning    and  you think about that in terms of other investments where you're like, oh, I don't know, like cryptocurrency seems really weird and  whatever.

And then you look back on it and you're like. Oh yeah, that might've been a good idea in 2020, like that, that probably would've served us well. So that's my 2 cents on just short-term rental and what I see, like keeping my finger on the pulse of what's happening in the real estate investment world. If you wanna get in on the ground floor of something, especially in the city of Portland, pad split is just getting established here and I guess I could just say I would bet, in five years you'll look back and be like, oh, oh yeah, I heard that crazy girl Ann talking about that. I wish I would've listened to her then. 'cause look at what's happening now. 

 And that's perfect because our next mini episode will be about midterm rentals pad split, and all the new stuff that's coming down the road.

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