00:25
Robert Chadwick
Hi everybody, this is Robert Chadwick with America Mortgages. Thank you again for joining on our webinar series. This webinar is something unique and it’s been requested by many of our clients. As most people are aware, the whole Airbnb craze, or short term rental craze is phenomenal. Great way to optimize your rental yields when you’re buying us real estate. And we’re happy to have Rob Mehta from Rob Mehta Partners. Rob is the founder of the company and an expert when it comes to short term rentals in the US not only just Florida. So with that said, Robert, Rob, why don’t you take few minutes, introduce yourself. Thank you for joining us. We really appreciate it and take it away.
04:06
Rob Mehta
Okay, fantastic. Thanks, Robert, and good to be with everybody today. Yes, as Robert said, my name is Rob Ma. My company is Rob Mehta Partners and we have a brokerage division called the Florida Property Group. We do specialize in the Florida market. However, we’ve worked in a number of markets across the United States and over the last seven to eight years in our business, the Airbnb, we call it the str, the short term rental market. And short term rental clients have become a huge part of that market. And so if you would have asked me eight, nine years ago, is this a specialty that were going to wade into, I would have said, well, we’ll see. But it has become that way.
04:45
Rob Mehta
We’ve formed relationships with some very strong property management companies in this space that send us their clients as well, not only to buy, but to sell as well. And so we have become experts in this and unknowingly, but that’s what’s happened over time. And so our market, our primary market, which is Florida, which is I’m going to discuss today, is a little bit of what I’m sharing with you. But however, realize that this really does apply to a lot of Airbnb STR markets across the United States as well. So we’re very bullish on Florida because it is our home market. And I’m going to share with you some pointers, some key statistics, as well as to why we are so bullish on this market. But again, we can assist a client pretty much in any major market across the United States. So.
05:37
Rob Mehta
So a little with that, I’ll jump off into the first slide a little bit and give you just a little bit of background as to what’s happening with the Florida market.
05:47
Robert Chadwick
Well, hold on, Rob.
05:48
Rob Mehta
Okay, sorry. Sorry.
05:49
Robert Chadwick
Yeah, I’ll share the slides in a second. But so everybody on the webinar is aware how the process will go is Rob will discuss, you know, his business, the market, etc. Then I’ll talk about obtaining a mortgage as a non US Resident, both foreign national or expat. And then, please, any questions that you have, we’ll save them to the end and then Rob and I will answer them. As you know, they pertain to each one of us. So during the chat or during the webinar, there’ll be a chat box. Feel free to put your question in there at any time and they will be addressed at the end, within the chat as well, you’ll see a link or a couple links if you want to make an appointment directly with American Mortgages to speak to a loan officer or.
06:39
Robert Chadwick
Or you’d like to speak with Rob or one of Rob’s team members. So with that said, Rob, I will share the slides and let’s go.
06:49
Rob Mehta
Fantastic. Thanks, Robert. Okay, great. So let’s talk a little bit about what’s happening in Florida. I’m sure this is a market that probably no one on the webinar is not somewhat familiar with, but this is one of the heavy growth markets and has been for a long time in the U.S. However, what’s happening is that demographics are changing, and I’ll share those with you in a few minutes. Our inflow of migration is changing as well as the investors that are entering this market. And so that’s what really makes us a unique opportunity, or has been for the last few years and will continue to be moving forward as well in migration, of course, does play into this, and I’m going to share some stats on that as well as our tourism market, which is among the strongest in the world.
07:36
Rob Mehta
And so with that, also a lifestyle play, Florida has some of the most cleanest waters and cleanest air anywhere in the world. And that also does drive tourism and it does drive livability, of course, when you’re in an environment where you don’t have to worry about these things. And I spend a significant amount of my time in Asia, where I do have to worry about these things at time in certain markets. And this is just not the case in this market. So go ahead and click on the next slide there. So the STR play is a very interesting one, in my opinion. And the reason for that is that we are the largest Airbnb STR market in the United States. There are pros and cons with it. Go ahead and pause there For a second, pros and cons would be that you have.
08:26
Rob Mehta
The biggest pro would be that we have a lot more revenue yield on a property that is a long term, sorry a short term rental property versus a long term property. So str or slash Airbnb versus some a property where you would rent it out on annual basis. Now that being said, I also like to discuss what the cons are. The cons are, is that you have more revenue volatility, meaning that every month there isn’t a stable income. It can go up and down depending on seasonality and trends. It is a more labor intensive type of property to own, meaning bookings have to be managed, guests have to be managed, communication has to be managed, turnover of the property has to be managed.
09:03
Rob Mehta
Now we found solutions to all of these, but I never want to cover up the fact that it is a more time intensive process depending on how you run your property. So great. Now we’re on some stats here which let me share these quickly with you. So I mentioned in migration, what we’re looking at here specifically is not migration. First we’re looking at visitors into the state. And you’ll notice that Florida is a, of course, as I said, a large tourism market. But what’s interesting is that about 80% of our tourism is driven by the domestic market. Now why is that important? It’s important because this is a market. And we noticed this during COVID We had about a 30 to 45 day Covid shutdown and then the state was open again for business.
09:45
Rob Mehta
And so what happened is that our property owners never suffered much of a Covid effect. Properties maintained bookings. In fact, bookings got even stronger during that period, minus a little bit of a dip you can see in 2020. And that was mainly due to that little bit of shutdown that we had. So yes, flights were expensive, so on and so forth, but the domestic market stayed very, very strong. And so that kept the market very buoyant, which was fantastic for our owners. Go ahead and go to the next slide there. Now we’re looking at growth by region. So now we’re actually looking at some in migration trends. Florida has been the largest in migration market now for several years, along with other areas in the U.S. Like Texas, Arizona, Nevada, so on and so forth.
10:30
Rob Mehta
So what you’re looking at, the green bubbles, if you will, that I’ve highlighted, are the largest in migration markets in the state. You can also see that there is an orange bubble here as well. That market, the Daytona Beach Melbourne market, a Little bit of a slower migration market and there’s actually been a little bit of population shift out of there. Why is that? Primarily because NASA has moved some of its jobs and some of its resources into the subcontracting market. So some of those NASA staff have left, some of those support staff have left as well. And then you’ll also see a couple of markets that I’ve got marked in red. Now, I don’t have them marked in red because they’re bad markets in migration wise. However, they are not markets that we would generally recommend from an STR perspective.
11:13
Rob Mehta
And why is that? Well, number one, we’re looking at the Miami Fort Lauderdale market and number two, we’re looking at the Florida Keys. Both markets are very regulatory intensive. Both markets are also more susceptible, more so than other parts of the state, and especially the Keys when it comes to climate change and hurricanes and so on and so forth. And I’ll address that a little bit later as well. So the green bubbles, if you will, are the markets that we’re the most bullish on and also where we see the most growth. And so how that helps our investors is that perhaps in the future, maybe you don’t want to hold your property as an str. Maybe you do want to put a long term renter in there.
11:50
Rob Mehta
When you have a market that’s got this kind of growth, you can flip back and forth if you want to. You might decide to switch to STR mode for one year and then after that perhaps your investment goal has changed. Okay, let me put a long term renter in there. And if you’re happy with the revenue, leave it as a long term rental. So our goal is to give our investors maximum flexibility whenever we can. And these markets allow you to have that maximum flexibility. So the next slide here, this is an article that just came out a couple of weeks ago. This is another reason we’re a little bit less bullish on Miami. Because Miami right now is going through a huge condo boom. And not just a huge boom, but condos that are specifically targeted toward the STR market.
12:33
Rob Mehta
So what does that mean? It means that there’s going to be a glut of inventory on the market in the next three to five years. Whenever there’s a glut of inventory, that means that yields go down. And we are not looking for properties where yields are going down. Now, we’re not going to say don’t buy in Miami. Sure, if you’re investing goals and your lifestyle goals match up with Miami, you can still earn revenue in that market. But from a pure investment standpoint, what we see coming is we see a lot of inventory that’s going to cut those yields down for the investor. And that’s not going to be a good thing. Generally. Go ahead and go to the next slide there.
13:06
Rob Mehta
The other thing to realize, and this is true of any market in the United States, very much so of Florida, is that as an STR investor, you’re not exposed necessarily to the entire property market as a whole. And what do I mean by that? Well, there are regulations. We’ve got overlays, we call them overlays. So regulations, homeowner association, HOA policies, so on and so forth. So if you pick any market, let’s say we pick Tampa, if you look at 100% of the market, what you’ll realize is that based on local regulations, there’s probably only about 30% of the market that actually qualifies as short term rentals.
13:43
Rob Mehta
And when you divide that even further, when you divvy deep down onto that, you’ll realize that on top of that you’ve got hoa Homeowner association regulations will then bring that actual market down to maybe 10 to 12%. So you’re not looking at the entire market. But where this also helps you is when you go to sell, because the vast majority of properties do not qualify as STR properties due to these regulations. So yes, it’s a much smaller market to enter, but we’ll realize it’s a very finite amount of stock when it also comes to exit. And that also helps, of course with rental rates and so on and so forth, because the US is a very regulated market. So next slide there. So the next couple things we’ll talk about are what we call the key market drivers.
14:27
Rob Mehta
You know, why is this such an attractive investment and especially for our home market? So go ahead and jump to the next slide and this is a little bit of an overview. This applies pretty much anywhere in the United States. You know, number one, the US is a freehold market, fee simple ownership for everyone. And I do mean everyone. So it doesn’t matter if you’re a U.S. Citizen or a citizen of a foreign country, you have the right to hold that property, as we call it freehold or locally we call it fee simple. Big data in our market allows you to see transparency in pricing and ownership. You can literally look up any property in the United States today and find history online, public information as to when that property was sold last, how often has it traded hands, so on and so forth.
15:08
Rob Mehta
There’s a lot of data around this which makes investing with the right information very easy to do. Very clear zoning laws. And specifically when it comes to Florida, what you’ll discover is that the state has been very stringent on development. So what does that mean for you as an investor? It means that if you buy into a development, it doesn’t mean that in six months there’s going to be a development next to you. You can typically look at development maps and look at city planning to see what’s happening in those areas. And so that also assess you’re not typically looking at a lot of inventory all over the place. Title insurance, if you’re not familiar with title insurance, basically it’s an insurance policy you buy once you buy it at closing.
15:49
Rob Mehta
And what that does is it protects your title and it protects any liens, encumbrances, anyone that might come back at some point and say, hey, I have ownership in this property. That’s why you have that policy. So it’s a very ironclad protection for you as an investor. Obviously, title checks are done before you close on the property, but this insurance protects from anything that might come up as well. You can own the property in your own name or in a legal entity. We’ve had foreign investors where we help them set up legal entities, so that’s easy enough to do as well. Robert’s going to talk about financing, so I don’t want touch upon that. But obviously foreign purchasers through GMG and American Mortgages can use financing and he’ll touch on that. And lastly, the round trip transaction costs are typically between 6 and 7%.
16:32
Rob Mehta
What do I mean by round trip? What I mean is that from the time you buy to the time you sell, and I’m estimating a little bit on the high end, but I’m the kind of guy that likes to estimate a little bit high rather than a little bit low. So your cost might be 5%, but again, realize you probably want to budget for 6, maybe even 7%. Depends on what the market is doing. And that includes things like selling commissions, title fees, miscellaneous, you know, selling costs, buying costs, so on and so forth. So again, I’m estimating a little bit high, but realize that you’re probably going to be somewhere in that neighborhood. So go ahead and jump to the next slide. Relatively low prices and strong returns.
17:10
Rob Mehta
If you take a look at the investment hotspots and the markets in Florida, we are still globally a very affordable market on a price per square foot or price per square meter basis. And so that makes us a very attractive market. Even if you look at areas such as Miami, which I just talked about, Miami and Fort Lauderdale, the price per square meter is literally a fraction of what it is in any other world city out there, whether it’s Hong Kong, New York, London, etc. Etc. So the value play is definitely very strong. If you bought property on the west coast of the United States, such as California, you know what I’m talking about. That is a very expensive market. Very, very difficult to make money in a market like that, where you’ve got a lot more opportunities in a market such as this.
17:53
Rob Mehta
Go ahead and go to the next slide. Quality of life. I kind of touched upon this briefly, but one of the things that attracts not only a lot of tourists, but of course a lot of folks that want to relocate is of course, the environment, the air quality, the water quality, the amount of recreational opportunities and so on and so forth that exist. Our local leadership, state leadership, doesn’t matter if they’re Democrat or Republican, have been very strong on protecting those natural habitats, the natural resources, and also limiting the amount of growth in any given area. And so, again, if you look at the city planning for even a place like Orlando, what you’ll realize is that they’ve set aside a tremendous amount of green space to ensure that there always will be that green space that will exist for future growth.
18:39
Rob Mehta
And a lot of that is government lands. Wetland areas, Florida. The old joke is don’t buy a swamp in Florida. No, of course not. But there is a lot of wetland, and that wetland is protected. So it’s not designed to be infilled in the future and built upon. It’s protected, and it’s there as a natural resource to exist for decades and centuries to come. Go ahead and jump to the next slide there. So now I want to talk a little bit about some properties, and I’ve got three properties in particular that we’re going to talk about and share with you again, a little bit of pros and cons from each of these properties, because each of them are distinct from. From each other. So the first one here, and I’ve pulled up some properties that are currently on the market.
19:22
Rob Mehta
But as everyone knows, properties come and properties go. We do have these listed on the America Mortgages website, of course, as well. So feel free to go and take a look at additional information. This property is a villa. It’s in a town called Ocala, Florida. Ocala is about an hour and 15 minutes northwest of the Orlando market. So it’s not necessarily a part of the Orlando submarket. It’s kind of its own market. But Ocala is a growing area. If anybody has heard of the development called the Villages, it’s one of the largest single family developments in the world. It is located not that far from Ocala. This property is not in the Villages. And I’ll. And the reason why I picked this is because of the numbers. But you can find similar properties like this in the Villages if you’re so interested.
20:08
Rob Mehta
This property is priced at 289. It has a gross avenue. This is a producing property right now at about 24,000 a year, roughly as a short term rental. STR has about $8,400 a year in expenses. Now that would be your taxes, your insurance, your management fees. One thing I haven’t included in this is such variables like electricity, because those can go up and those can go down. Water usage goes up, goes down. So we’ve got to add a little bit of buffer there. But just to keep the math very clean, we’re looking at about a 5.4% cap rate. Cap rate is what we like to use, capitalization rate, which is basically taking the revenue and dividing it into the purchase price to see how this asset stands up against other assets out there in the marketplace. So clean property turnkey.
20:51
Rob Mehta
What’s interesting with a property like this is when you buy a performing property, you’re buying the property and you’re buying all the assets inside. So this property comes fully furnished. In fact, the date you close on it, you pick up all of the future bookings, those transfer to you. So you’re buying, in effect, you’re buying a business, you’re buying a property, but you’re really buying a business that is already running, already has goodwill and you’re taking it over. So it’s a really fantastic way to own property. Two, this is a small condo in Fort Myers. Very, very inexpensive. It’s very difficult to find a property like this. And I wasn’t even going to include this until recently where I saw the news that America Mortgages is offering financing down to this price point, which I’m sure Robert will touch on.
21:37
Rob Mehta
But this is a very difficult find out there. And this will not last very long. 105,000 is pretty amazing. And this is making 24k in gross revenue a year, same as the property, which is phenomenal. 9,200 in expenses. The expenses are a little bit higher because you’ve got HOA fees, homeowner association fees that are of course not on the single villa. But look at that cap rate. 14% to be honest, anything north of 8, 9, 10 is really, really good. So this is a really phenomenal buy. And if somebody is looking to make a move very quickly, I would say contact us on this one very quickly because it will not last. And then we’ve got property three. This is, I call it new. This is a new property. It’s Orlando, but it’s actually Orlando. Orlando Southwest.
22:27
Rob Mehta
It’s in an area called Champions Gate, which is about a 20 minute drive to Disney. So South Orlando, Southwest Orlando are your hottest str markets in that market. Why is that? Disney, your closest proximity to Disney and then second closest to the Universal resort markets. And if you’re following any of those, you know all the growth that’s happening with Disney and all the growth that’s happening with Universal and they are both competing against each other to build, build, develop, develop. And they’ve turned into bigger destinations today than they were even five years ago. So that’s pretty amazing. So this particular property, this is a new construction property. It’s priced at 560. This one we’re estimating gross revenue at 48k. We’re basing that on the comps in the immediate area.
23:14
Rob Mehta
So knowing what properties typically fetch now Orlando is interesting because it is a, it is probably the most seasoned market in the state and it’s also the one that has the less, the least, excuse me, seasonality as well. And why is that again, Disney and Universal, they attract families year round. If you look at stats on short term rental properties, you’ll notice that Orlando holds its own very well. It doesn’t matter what month of the year you’re in, taxes are estimated. But again this is a pretty accurate estimation of taxes, insurance, management fees. And you can see this one comes out at a 6.1 cap rate. Not bad for a new property, a new construction. By the way, in the United States, new construction properties are sold with 10 year warranties, structural warranties.
23:57
Rob Mehta
So if you have any problem, you can go back to the builder. It is the builder’s responsibility to correct any structural defects. So you’ve got a property, it’s like buying a new car that you shouldn’t have to worry about maintenance wise for a long, long time. So, so that’s our third property there. And I’ve got a couple of stats that I want to share with you. That are specifically interested if you are based in Asia. I’m sure many of you traveling around have flown on Airbus’s new A350 which is I think been around now for at least a couple of years. The A350 is actually has the capability of flying direct from Asia into an east coast market like Miami.
24:35
Rob Mehta
We haven’t seen that yet, but I don’t think that it’s far away to see flights from areas such as Hong Kong and Singapore to Miami. And I think that’s going to be a phenomenal ad and create some new opportunities in terms of tourism and so on and so forth that didn’t exist before. And I always say watch where the airlines go. An airline is not going to launch a new route unless they’ve done all their research. They know all the economics and they know that they’ve got demand. So when an airline launches this route, you know that the demand is already there and it’s going to bode well for investors. And then a little bit about us. So go ahead and jump to the next slide there. This is just a look at all of our services that we offer.
25:15
Rob Mehta
We work with buyers, we work with sellers, we’ve worked with developers on projects directly in the past as well. But realize that we are an end to end solution. We can assist you in the acquisition of your property. We are not a property management company, but we can place you with property management. We have a number of really strong relationships throughout the US and we can assist you when it’s time to sell as well and sell in a very economical manner so that you’re hanging on to as much of your equity as possible. So realize that we’re with you a whole step of the process. We’ve also assisted our clients with things such as setting up LLC to purchase the properties and so on and so forth.
25:50
Rob Mehta
So we can be a resource for a number of different things in addition to the actual property process. So and with that I’m going to hand it back over to Robert.
26:07
Robert Chadwick
Thanks Rob. Super, super interesting stuff. You know I, as a real estate investor myself, I’ve actually not, I’ve not gotten into the short term rentals but I do have a lot of friends that are, and they love it. I mean it increases the yield on the properties and I think especially the property number two that you showed with the 14 return that is absolutely fantastic. What’s your thoughts on buying I guess less expensive properties to buying more expensive properties when it comes to rentability, whether it’s short term or even long term. And also I think one thing that is really important, especially in the US is the capital appreciation. So I don’t know if you could expand on that a little.
27:01
Rob Mehta
Yeah, absolutely. It’s a great question. Well, a couple of different thoughts on that. So you know, generally speaking, when you look at, you know, a long term, a property that has a long term renter, you’re going to put a long term renter in there. Long term for us is a year or more versus the short term. There’s a, there’s a few trends happening there in any given market. If you’re buying a property and you say, okay, I’m going to just keep this as a long term property, rental property, it never hurts to go after the smallest property because there’s always going to be a renter for that. You know, to pick up a two bedroom house and rent it for fifteen hundred dollars a month. Easy as pie to do that. No problem.
27:34
Rob Mehta
There’s always a huge base of renters when it comes to this market, a little bit more different. So some of the trends that we’re seeing is especially with villas or what we call single family properties, those properties tend to do best when you’ve got at least three bedrooms, four bedrooms. Because the trend that we’re seeing is that your target market likes to holiday together. Sometimes two families get together, sometimes even three depending on the size of the property. And instead of booking separate hotel rooms, they want to book a villa where they’ve got a pool, they’ve got amenities, so on and so forth. One of the things which I don’t see this trend perhaps lasting in the way it has.
28:09
Rob Mehta
We’ve seen this in the Orlando market where there are mega mansions literally with eight and 10 bedrooms that are being rented for, you know, pretty good sums of money on a nightly or weekly or monthly basis. Now the challenge there is that if that trend changes, you’ve got this mansion that probably is not going to fetch what you need it to cover the cost and the debt service on the law on the long term market, as it does on the short term market. So there are a few things to look at. We want to be careful of the outliers. So of course as well you mentioned about appreciation. Again, this is where, you know, location, location is the adage in real estate.
28:45
Rob Mehta
We want to make sure that you’re not buying in an area where there is not growth potential, where there is not, you know, industry coming in, you know, businesses coming in. And obviously that’s what drives of course, the in migration foreignmost what’s interesting today versus maybe 15 years ago in the Florida market is that a lot of the in migration today is families moving in. It’s, it’s, you know, Gen X, gen Y. Why are they coming? They’re coming for jobs. And so when you look at a lot of the new development today, you’re not looking at single family villas, you’re not looking at single story, you’re looking at multi story properties. Why is that? Because it’s more attractive to a family. So again, the demographic change has been a rather interesting one and that’s where you want to focus.
29:26
Rob Mehta
If you’re looking at also long term.
29:29
Robert Chadwick
Appreciation, great perspective. I also too three year discussion. It absolutely makes sense. But I had never thought of it this way. When you are buying something that’s an existing Airbnb, you truly are buying a small business because, you know, as you mentioned, you’re getting not only the property, but you’re getting all of the, you know, the furnishings inside. But I wasn’t aware. But it makes absolute sense that you’re also getting any of the forward bookings that are already in the system. My one question is, and is, you know, there are reviews obviously for Airbnb. I know when I’ve looked at Airbnb, I’ve looked at the reviews and I’ve looked to see, you know, okay, how is this person perform, you know, how is the property?
30:21
Robert Chadwick
If you are buying an Airbnb, do your reviews or I guess your feedback from does that all start fresh or how does that work, whether it’s with Airbnb or other services?
30:34
Rob Mehta
Yeah, that’s a great question. So typically what happens is when you’re, you know, you’re inheriting those bookings. That’s correct. We’ve had properties close where, I mean, the day of closing, there’s already 50, 60, $100,000 in future bookings. Now of course, some of those bookings may cancel. That’s just a fact of life. But generally speaking, those bookings are already there. What we always advise our clients is it’s usually if you’ve got successful bookings into the future, it’s well worth staying with that property management firm, at least for a short while before you look at switching and that. So to your question about the reviews and such, that really depends on the contract that’s in place. Many property management firms will sort of hand over the keys, to lack of a better term, to, you know, the Airbnb listings and those Kinds of things.
31:20
Rob Mehta
However, if you’re with a property management company where the vast majority of their marketing is through their own portal, then of course you’re going to lose that visibility moving forward. But generally speaking, yeah, your Airbnb listings, booking.com, vRBO, those would all transfer to the new owner as well, whenever that’s possible to do so.
31:41
Robert Chadwick
Great, thank you. And one last question before we start online again. I find this to be. It’s something that comes up all the time and it’s very interesting, but when you buy an Airbnb and you’re getting these bookings and so forth, are you able to kind of readjust that, like cancel any forward bookings or, you know, maybe you want to renovate the property, you want to do something different to increase the value, to increase the rent. Is that a possibility as well?
32:14
Rob Mehta
It is, it is. And it does happen from time to time. I mean, you generally don’t want to cancel bookings whenever possible, but if you are doing a renovation or you have some other plans for the property, then of course, you know, the different booking sites have different policies when it comes to, you know, refunds of deposits and things like that. But yeah, absolutely, those things definitely are, are cancelable if need be. But again, to be avoided whenever possible, of course.
32:40
Robert Chadwick
Certainly, certainly. Okay, perfect. All right, so with that said, I shall start mine if I can figure out how to get this thing back up here. Okay, so again, thank you everybody for joining. As always, we like to have some amazing guests. And in this case, I think something that has been asked a lot about is Airbnb, how do we finance it, how do we find it, how does it work in the US And I think Rob was able to really address all of these issues. However, I know there will be a lot of questions, so please put it into the chat and then we’ll discuss it at the end. But right now I’m going to share American mortgages capabilities for financing for non US residents as both foreign nationals and US expats. So our general mortgage overview.
33:45
Robert Chadwick
We do purchases, refinances and cash outs. We’re seeing a lot of demand for cash out. A lot of that has to do with the strength of the US dollar. Obviously, if you’re able to release some equity or some money out of your existing US property and if you are living abroad and you move it in back into your home currency, you know, you’re getting a big upswing on that. So certainly that has been trending and you Know we’re open or our loan office is open to discussing this further if you have any questions on that. If you’re a foreign national, So a non US resident, non US passport holder, likely no US credit, we can get up to 75% financing.
34:30
Robert Chadwick
If you’re a US expat and you maintain US credit, we try to make it as exactly as if you walked into your local bank and you were living and working in the US you can get up to 80% at market rate, as everybody is probably aware. But if you are not, the US does not have any limitations when it or restrictions when it comes to the longest amortization based on your age. So with discrimination laws, you cannot discriminate against somebody that is 19 or 99. So regardless of age, you are able to take the longest amortization period available. So 30 year fix for a 90 year old person is absolutely not an issue. The most important thing is it really allows you to be able to capitalize on the rental yields because you’re spreading that loan over a long period of time.
35:29
Robert Chadwick
Interest rates have gone up as everybody knows. We’re hoping with the new administration, interest rates go down. But we’ve been able to, I guess, foresee this and we have a fantastic program that allows you to maximize on the yield but still take advantage of the fixed rate portion. So we have a 10 year interest only fixed loan. What that means is for the first 10 years the rate is fixed but you’re only servicing the interest. After that 10 year period, the loan converts into a principal and interest 20 year fixed without an adjustment in rate. Absolutely fantastic loan program. Especially if you’re looking at doing either Airbnb long term rental. You can truly forecast, you know what your payments are and you assume that rental curve is going up every year. Loan programs in all 50 states.
36:25
Robert Chadwick
So regardless of where you’re at in Florida or elsewhere, we can still get financing qualify on the rental income and not the salary. Common sense underwriting. As a direct lender in the U.S. We look at properties the way they should be looked at. You do not have to provide your personal income documents. We qualify the properties based on the cash flow of the property. Now that can either be long term or we have programs also for short term, such as what Rob had discussed with the Florida properties. If you want to use foreign income for some reason the rents aren’t enough to qualify for the maximum loan to value, then certainly we can look at foreign income.
37:12
Robert Chadwick
It’s absolutely allowed with us both foreigners and for US Expats, which, if you’re a US expat and you’ve dealt with any of the banks, you will know this is the biggest hurdle and getting approved, we have no issues. Again, the borrowers can be non US Citizens, they can be US expats living overseas. If you’re a foreign national, no US Credit is required and we have only dry lending. What does that mean? It means that you do not have to open a bank account or have a minimum deposit while you have these loans in place. Fantastic process. Takes about 72 hours once you submit your document. We have a very secure, easy to use mortgage application portal that makes this actually as seamless as possible.
38:01
Robert Chadwick
30 to 45 day loan closing and you never have to travel to the US you can open the application and close the mortgage all from your home country in a variety of ways. We’re really proud that 97% of our loans that we submit into underwriting get approved. So huge advantage, especially when we are using common sense underwriting and qualifying the properties on the cash flow. We have 24. 7 service. There will be a phone number within that chat that will allow you to speak to a loan officer in your time zone and in your language. So loan officers based all over the world and also based in the US Allowing you to have perfect service. You’re not staying up at 2am to talk to somebody in New York. So going forward in 2025, we had this webinar last, I think a couple weeks ago.
39:04
Robert Chadwick
Our goal is to make US real estate investing easier and more accessible for everybody. You know, as we had Rob on this conversation, you know, the idea that we want to make this as turnkey as possible. We bring in, we bring in partners like Rob Mehta and partners and we allow the investors, regardless of where they’re living, a seamless entry into the US Real estate market or if they’re already seasoned investors, to be able to come in and be able to increase their real estate portfolio and increase their wealth. So our u, our loan programs for non residents and US Expats, this loan program is going to cover exactly what Robin discussed. Again, we do not need personal income documents on this. We’re going to qualify the property on the cash flow.
40:02
Robert Chadwick
So if this has already been an existing Airbnb property or somewhat similar to an Airbnb company, we can get those records quite easily and we can present this as the income to qualify for the loan. We have loan amounts that go as low as $100,000 and when I say $100,000, it means that is the minimum purchase price of the property. I don’t think you will find anybody else in the market that has this advantage to go this low with the loan amounts. And of course you know, we can go on these programs up to $3 million. But it becomes a little bit more difficult when you’re trying to qualify on the cash flow of the property when you’re in a high purchase price. But certainly it is possible. It’s just maybe a slight LTV adjustment.
40:55
Robert Chadwick
Again, 30 year fix and interest only available on all these programs. And to show you how this qualifies, if you look at the bottom of the screen you can see that we used a one to one ratio. Certainly there are other people out there that maybe not specializing in foreign nationals, but most likely they’re using a one to two ratio, meaning for it’s much more difficult to qualify. We look at these programs again in common sense. So as long as the rental amount, whether it’s long term or short term, covers the mortgage, taxes, insurance, and perhaps if there’s an hoa, then the loan is going to qualify. If for some reason it does not qualify, it does are for the maximum loan to value, it does not mean that the loan does not qualify.
41:47
Robert Chadwick
It just means that maybe you have to come in with a little bit more cash for the down payment. Our US Expats Investor mortgage, this is super popular. And if you are a US expat and you have tried to get a loan, you know how frustrating it is. You have. I mean you could have been a client at a major bank for decades, but as soon as you move overseas, you start earning in foreign dollars or perhaps you’re working for a foreign company that doesn’t issue a W2, it becomes almost impossible to get a mortgage. We’ve changed that. We’ve made this, if you’re a US expat to be exactly like if you were living and working in the U.S. As long as you maintain U.S.
42:35
Robert Chadwick
Credit, you will have the same rates, the same programs, the same terms, except you won’t have what the standard requirements are for a US bank. Now with this, the minimum loan amount is $150,000. And like most US loans, we do qualify this on a debt to income ratio which is 43%. So as it would be the same in the US so if you again you look at the bottom of the screen, you can see how it qualifies based on the 43% debt to income ratio. This is what I Had talked about on the first slide. Say you want to qualify using the rental income of the property, but perhaps at this time the rental income is not supporting the highest loan to value which you would like to do. We have a way to switch this, but to not actually use your tax returns.
43:34
Robert Chadwick
As you can imagine, we’re doing loans all over the world from Sydney to Shanghai. And with that it would be very complicated for our underwriters to go through all of the tax returns in a variety of languages. Be very complicated for you to have these translated. So what we do is we make this as simple as possible. If you’re employed, we want a letter from your employer on your employer letterhead that basically states your last two years of income and your current year to date. If you are self employed, absolutely fine. We just need something from your accountant stating the same. With that we’re able to use your income as if you were to provide tax returns and pay stubs. So it makes it a very simple, easy to qualify loan.
44:25
Robert Chadwick
So again, loan amounts on this program are limited to 150,000 starting, but again up to 3 million 30 year fix and interest only available and 75% loan to value foreign nationals. So we work with a lot of investment banks, you know, they have their clients, they, you know, they want to be able to service them. But as most people are aware, most international banks do not have U.S. Mortgage programs. So we’ve created a loan program that allows high net worth borrowers to be able to qualify in a very straightforward, simple process, but for very high loan amounts. You know, we’re aware that high net worth foreign national investors maybe have very complicated tax returns. Various jurisdictions, perhaps they don’t even show their true serviceability of debt. This removes all of those hurdles. No personal income is required.
45:29
Robert Chadwick
How we qualify this loan is we take a two month average of your liquid portfolio. When I say liquid portfolio, I mean cash, bonds, stocks, things that can be liquidated easily. And we’re going to average that out over a 60 month period or a 5 year fixed loan. There is no, there is no encumbrance on this portfolio and no AUM required, meaning that we will use this to qualify. But the day after the loan qualifies, you can trade it, you can sell it, you can do whatever you want. There is no encumbrance on the monies that is used to qualify for this loan. And if you look at the bottom, it explains exactly how we do this. If you are a high net worth individual, you will probably find this to be the easiest loan that you’ve ever qualified for. So that’s my presentation.
46:26
Robert Chadwick
I’m sure there are quite a bit of questions. This is our contact information. You can scan the QR code. It brings everything up. You can reach out to, again, any of our loan officers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you speak, you know, a specific language, just please make sure you enter that in there. And also in the chat, you know, I’m sure everybody found Rob’s presentation extremely interesting. You can go on and you can book an appointment directly with Rob and his group to be able to speak about Airbnbs or, you know, just a catch up in general. So with that said, Rob, let’s start the Q A. Let me see what we got here. Okay.
47:17
Rob Mehta
Sounds good. Robert and I did answer a few questions in the chat as well. Okay.
47:23
Robert Chadwick
But we’ll talk them all out and then if you answered it, then I’ll leave it to you and we can go from there.
47:31
Rob Mehta
Sure, sure. Sounds good. Well, I can rehash a little bit. I kept the answers fairly limited. So should I go ahead and just ask the question and provide a little.
47:40
Robert Chadwick
So, so how it’ll work is I’ll read the question. If it changed to you, I’ll ask you to answer it. If it pertains to me, then I’ll take over. So the first question is, did I hear that the first 10 years is interest only payments? That would be for me, yes. So you have the option to do a 10 year fixed interest only loan or you don’t. You can do, if you want to do just purely a principal and interest 30 year amortized loan, you have that as well. What we do at America Mortgages is try to give you the flexibility to be able to get the most from your rental property. So you have the options. I would suggest probably going in and clicking and making appointment to speak with one of the loan officers to explain in more detail. Next question.
48:32
Robert Chadwick
For the 10 year interest only, is that optional or mandatory? Oh, perfect. I think I just covered that. So it’s absolutely optional. You have the choice to service principal and interest from day one or you have the choice to do the interest only. Next question. How much is the AM application fee? Oh, fantastic question. We get this a lot. We do not have an application fee. If you want to apply for a loan, it is very easy and straightforward. We have a platform that allows you just answer some questions, securely upload documents. Once we receive this, then we normally we run it through underwriting and we can issue you a pre approval letter within 24 to 72 hours.
49:19
Robert Chadwick
Once you have that pre approval letter, you can go to Rob or somebody like Rob and you can say, hey, look, I’ve already been approved for a loan and it shows that you’re serious. Next question. Sorry, Rob, this seems to be a lot.
49:34
Rob Mehta
I did, I did answer a few while you were chatting, so that’s okay.
49:40
Robert Chadwick
Question. I’m not a US citizen. How long would it take me to get a mortgage approval with America Mortgages? It’s very quick. A US citizen is a little bit different because you are submitting tax returns and so forth. But in general, once we have this, we can tell you very quickly if your loan is going to be approved or not and we can issue you the pre approval letter. And again, the pre approval letter is that’s, that’s the catalyst to be able to start shopping for properties. It’s the most important thing to do when you’re looking for US real estate is to actually get pre approved for a loan and be comfortable with the mortgage payments and actually the qualifying requirements and standards. Next question. Hi Robert, can you give us a breakdown of your services fees with rough estimates? Thanks.
50:35
Robert Chadwick
So whatever the fees are in that state, like title, escrow, insurance, all of these specifics are identical. There are no adjustments to this. These are what I would pay as a US citizen or what a foreign national would pay as a non US citizen. It’s very straightforward. The US is absolutely transparent. Everything and every cost of that loan has to be documented and has to be accounted for. For us, we charge a 2% origination fee which is paid only at the successful closing of the loan. But keep in mind too, and please, I’m not a accountant or a tax advisor, but check with your accountant or your tax advisor. With proper tax planning, most of these fees can actually be taken off of any income that you would earn on the property. Anyway, next question.
51:36
Robert Chadwick
Which loan program is most popular for investors keen on short term rentals? Well, I mean really for this type of program we truly have maybe two programs. We have the short term rental program. Keep in mind, because this is qualifying on short term rental, there may be an LTV restriction instead of, if you’re a foreign national, instead of getting to 75%, you know, we may only be able to get to 65%, but it will allow you to qualify on the short term rental income. If you buy it and you base the qualification on the long term rental, then you are Able to get the maximum loan to value at 75% and then how you rent it is really your choice. Next question. Oh, this is for you, Rob. Which states do you handle property management?
52:31
Robert Chadwick
Now I know you’re not doing property management, but I think you can still kind of expand on this.
52:35
Rob Mehta
Yeah, absolutely. So as far as property management goes, we have relationships across the U.S. Let me break this down a little bit because there are a number of different options when it comes to management. There are full service management companies that we work with. So we have full service companies in the state of Florida that we can recommend as well as other markets. Typically when you pay a full service company, it’s exactly that. They are going to take care of everything for you. They’re going to handle bookings, they’re going to handle revenue management, guest management, guest communication, turnover, all of it. You don’t have to do a thing typically. And this question always comes up. So I’m going to mention it here is what do fees look like?
53:14
Rob Mehta
Fees typically for a full service property manager are higher than they are if you’re hiring a full service manager to manage a long term rental. And why is that? Because again, you’ve got a lot more human power, if you will, involved. So typically those fees for a full service property management as I described typically are going to be in the neighborhood of 15 to 20%, sometimes even as high as 25% in certain markets. The next option is of course more of a regional company or a national company that is more of a booking agent and we do have those as well where they handle all of your bookings, your guest communication, so on and so forth. But because they are national companies generally they don’t have local manpower.
53:54
Rob Mehta
So for example, you still need a maid service to come in and turn over the property and so on and so forth. However, that being said, national companies charge much lower rates as well. So typically those kind of rates tend to be in the neighborhood of about 10 to 15%. And so you’re, obviously your yield goes up, but it does involve a little bit more work setting up those relationships initially in terms of having the right people on your team. But yeah, we can help somebody nationwide. It’s not something we do directly, but again, the relationships that we formed with some very solid companies, you know, to drive that exposure and make sure, especially for an overseas investor who does not have the time to obviously self manage, I don’t even recommend that to our US investors.
54:36
Rob Mehta
Some of them do, some of Them have their Airbnb and VRBR portals, but I would say it’s better to hand it off to somebody who’s a professional in this.
54:45
Robert Chadwick
Super good answer. And I think, you know, again, this all sort of circles back around on the questions that we get if we can finance a, you know, an Airbnb. And a lot of it comes back to, okay, if I can finance an Airbnb, I can find an Airbnb. How do I manage the Airbnb? So, you know, anybody has any questions on this, again, Rob’s contact and his team’s contact is within the chat. Please click on it and schedule an appointment with him. Okay, next question. Can you share an example of effective marketing strategies for Florida short term rentals on platforms like Airbnb, especially during the slower seasons?
55:26
Rob Mehta
I can, I can. So specifically, Airbnb and vrbo, one of the trends that we’ve seen, and I’m sure some of you that have used Airbnb and VRBO have noticed this where in the last few years there’s been a lot of padding of fees to drive revenue. So, for example, you book a property and it says 150 US a night. But when you get to the checkout page, you realize that you’ve got an Airbnb service fee, you’ve got a cleaning fee, you’ve got miscellaneous fees, and by the time you look at your true booking cost, now you’re up to 225 a night for just to make up an example. So what we’re seeing a lot more happening recently is that owners are eliminating some of those costs or they’re just adding them into the fee.
56:05
Rob Mehta
So it doesn’t feel like such a bait and switch for the renter for that holiday maker. So from that perspective, being very clear about your fees front the description of your property, I’ll tell you, a while back I was, I stayed in a property that we sold to a client. And even I didn’t realize this. It was a condo in Orlando. And when I got there, I realized it was a third floor condo. And I realized that it was one of the very rare buildings that does not have an elevator. So I’m dragging my suitcase up three flights of stairs and I thought, gosh, this should have, you know, again, we don’t handle the property management, but this should have been in the description to let us know.
56:40
Rob Mehta
Because if you have somebody that has special needs or has trouble walking or an elderly person, this could have been a real problem, you know, so it’s just little things like that you want to be very clear about as far as effective strategies. Again, this is where having a solid booking agent or property manager is really crucial. So criteria for a good one, they should have a very good presence on their own website and ideally a booking engine on their own website as well. And then of course, that they’re playing nicely with all of the other portals out there. Airbnb, Vrbo, you know, even sites such as booking.com, the OTRs, as we call them, the online travel agencies out there, you know, booking.com and hopper, and you know, all of these orbits and all these different sites that exist out there.
57:25
Rob Mehta
You want the maximum exposure you can get, of course.
57:27
Robert Chadwick
Right.
57:27
Rob Mehta
If you get the maximum exposure, you’re driving more. More eyeballs. More eyeballs means, you know, more traffic. More traffic means more bookings. The other thing with that is that a good property manager or booking engine will also help you price the property effectively. So that, and of course, with an STR situation where you have the volatility of the market, rates go up, rates go down, you really have to make sure you’ve got a good player on your team that will help you manage that in real time. Because obviously if your rates are up by a week and your competition is down, you’re not going to get bookings. Most likely. Most likely, unless it’s an outlier the week of the super bowl in New Orleans. Outlier, Right.
58:04
Rob Mehta
But other than that, you really have to have somebody on your group and your team that can really manage this on a real time basis and adjust that. Now, what you can do as the owner is you can set caps on that. You can set a base, and obviously no one wants to set a cap on the high end, but you definitely can set a base to say, you know, I want this property rented at a minimum of 150 a night and I won’t even accept bookings below that. So you’re free to do that as an investor, but you really do need somebody who can handle that in real time.
58:33
Robert Chadwick
Excellent answer. Thank you, Rob. You know, I think one thing that, especially as all of our clients are living overseas, the one thing that they’re concerned about, besides finding the, you know, the right property management or, you know, manager for this property, is the tax planning. If you have proper tax planning, I think you will find the US is by far the best place to invest in US real estate. With proper tax planning, whatever rental, your income or whatever income you’re making from this rental property, a lot, most of it, if not all. And of course, you know, we have, we’re tied in with this foreign national expat tax Planning Service and they are fantastic at making sure that you see proper rental yields on these properties, whether they’re short term or long term. So next question. I believe this is me.
59:34
Robert Chadwick
What is the current rate for a 30 year fixed? Well, I believe if you’re a US citizen right now it’s kind of floating below 7%, you know, in the high sixes up to seven. But if you’re a non US citizen, I think the easiest way to look at this, and we get this question all the time, you know, what are interest rates? And it’s kind of like saying how much is a car? Right. Interest rates are, especially foreign nationals and even US Expats. There’s a lot of factors that go into it. You know, what kind of property it is, what the loan to value you’re looking for, you know, where the property is located, is there a prepayment penalty. All of these things certainly impact the interest rate.
01:00:22
Robert Chadwick
In general though, a US citizen will pay whatever the market rate is, plus if there’s any kind of variance on loan to value or you know, property difficulties, etc. A foreign national, the easiest way to think about it is in general, somebody without US credit, with no US footprint and qualifying on the rental income of the property, you’re normally paying about a half a percent to 1% higher, which if you look at it on a global scale, because through our parent company Global Mortgage Group, we do mortgages all over the world. This is by far the most competitive when it comes to the difference between a non resident and a resident obtaining a mortgage. Next, let’s go to the questions that you answered, Rob. So I’ll read the question and then you can kind of just free flow on it.
01:01:18
Robert Chadwick
So given Florida’s hurricane seasons and insurance challenges, how do STR investors protect their investment and stay profitable during the slow periods? This is a very good question.
01:01:33
Rob Mehta
It is a very good question. Absolutely. So really two questions here. Number one, we’re talking about of course, what’s happening with climate and number two, how do you stay profitable? So let me touch upon number one, because this is a big one and I myself have lived through at least four hurricanes since I’ve been in Florida for the last decade or so. So definitely have some firsthand experience getting in my car and heading inland a little bit. So this is of course going to be an ongoing issue, what we’re seeing with climate change. However, you Actualize that is that the storms are increasing in frequency and in some cases intensity as well. Long story. If you’re living anywhere near the coast now, I my property is near the coast.
01:02:15
Rob Mehta
I’m about 10 miles inland from the beaches, so I’m technically coastal, but I’m fairly well protected where I’m at. But anywhere near the coast, you’re going to pay higher insurance costs. Insurance is really broken down into two separate components. You have what we call the actual hazard insurance on the structure itself and then you have flood insurance. And flood insurance actually protects you from, you could say flooding, but it’s a very specific type of flooding. It’s actually flooding that occurs because of accumulation of water. If you have flooding due to roof or structure damage that is covered by your base policy, the flooding insurance typically is an add on policy on top of it.
01:02:52
Rob Mehta
Many areas are not in flood areas, but we always recommend it’s worth having a flood policy if you have a main level property such as a villa or so on and so forth. So long story short, this is a risk that it’s not going away. It is pay to play. Of course, you know, wherever you look in the US California has fires, we have our issues with hurricanes. The Midwest has tornadoes. You have certain levels of risk. And to be able to recognize those risks and say, okay, this fits in with what I want to do, what I want to achieve, but insurance is a big part of that. It’s a big part of that expense.
01:03:25
Rob Mehta
So you have to consider that when you move further inland, Central Florida, Orlando, those markets, your insurance is significantly, not significantly different than if you were buying in the Midwest of the United States. So again, it’s going to, a lot of it’s going to depend on the location, proximity to water, you know, things like that. As far as staying profitable during slow periods, you know, I mentioned a few minutes ago really key to have somebody on your team, whether it’s a property manager, whether it’s a booking manager, booking agent that is watching revenue, adjusting rates for you, making sure that you’re staying competitive in the market. Because I’ll tell you, even today when I go to book an Airbnb in a different market and I like staying in str properties generally more space and amenities and so on and so forth.
01:04:07
Rob Mehta
I’m usually scrolling by price and then I’m looking at amenities and so on and so forth. So you know, people are price conscious, of course. And to make sure that you’re priced correctly, you know, in any given situation, week by week is going to be really key to make sure that you are driving, you know, occupancy rates that are, you know, hopefully 70%, 80%, 90%, so on and so forth.
01:04:28
Robert Chadwick
Yeah, great answer. Next question. What are your thoughts on competing markets within Florida? For example, how does investing in Orlando’s tourist corridor compare to beachfront properties in Tampa or Miami in the terms of ROI and expected occupancy rates?
01:04:44
Rob Mehta
Another great question. Yeah, so the best way to describe the Orlando market is that I would say seasonality. Orlando is least affected by seasonality. Why? Again, because of Disney? Because of Universal. It is a family market year round. Obviously there is a little bit of seasonality, but not that much. Not that much. And so Orlando is a very stable market. That being said, Orlando does have a lot of short term rental properties. So again, it’s a price sensitive market as well. Something to consider. Coastal markets tend to be a bit more seasonal. So I’m in southwest Florida and I’m also in South Florida and Miami. These are much more seasonal markets. We have high season and we do have low season as well. You know, high season is typically January through April. Low season is the rest of the year.
01:05:30
Rob Mehta
Now when I say low season, it doesn’t mean that it’s crickets. There are bookings, but again, bookings are driven by different things, not so much snowbirds and so on and so forth. Like you get with high season. ROI really is going to depend on the type of property, the location. There’s just so many variables. I think Robert, you mentioned this about one of the other facts as well. There’s just so many variables to play with there. One of the things that we do have access to is we do have access to some of this data through partners where we can evaluate and give some recommendations based on that. But again, a lot of that is really going to depend not just on the property, but the location, the amenities, you know, many things that come into play, you know, with that.
01:06:09
Robert Chadwick
Okay, perfect. Next question for villa properties. Sorry, that was your question. What type of properties? That is condos. Single family homes tend to perform best on short term rentals.
01:06:23
Rob Mehta
Okay, another really good question. And we have this discussion comes up, I would say fairly often and what I answered here as far as amenities goes for a villa property or single family, however you want to call that, you want to have a pool. People that rent these properties love the fact that they can hang out in their, you know, backyard, you know, use the pool, use the patio, so on and so forth. Now if you have a property without One or you buy one, right? You can add a pool, that kind of thing. It’s fine. You can even run one without a pool. But again, generally speaking, that is a very desired amenity. People come to Florida for the weather and, you know, they want to hang out at the pool.
01:06:58
Rob Mehta
Even, even folks that are going to Disney, you know, many of those individuals will not go four days in a row. If you went four days in a row, you’d, you probably need a vacation from Disney. So typically you’d go one day and then the next day you’re staying at the property, you let the kids play in the pool. That kind of thing, you enjoy, you know, you enjoy that property. So, so that is a big amenity. Also, this applies to STRs, to single family as well as condos is community amenities are a big deal. So community clubhouses, community pools. Many of the projects that we market have like Mini Mar, mini water parks inside of the project themselves.
01:07:33
Rob Mehta
And so those amenities are also very, very desirable to anybody that’s coming down and staying for, you know, four or five days or a week or whatever it is. Again, roi, it really is going to depend on the property in terms of what’s going to return the best roi. But again, having these amenities makes ROI go up. The last thing I’ll mention on that is proximity. So you could have the most fabulous property and you could have a review that says, oh, the home was great, but it took me 20 minutes to reach the closest restaurant. That can also affect you as well. So proximity to external amenities such as restaurants and shopping and, you know, things like that are also really crucial.
01:08:12
Rob Mehta
And obviously, if you’re not close to that, very important to spell that out, you know, in your marketing description because again, that will impact your reviews, that will impact, of course, future bookings and so on and so forth.
01:08:26
Robert Chadwick
Excellent. Okay, so I think we have one more question that popped up in the general chat and then I think we will end this. I think we’re going a little bit over time. So, you know, in respect for everybody’s time, again, I appreciate everybody staying on. And if you want to get an individual appointment with either America Mortgages to speak to a loan officer or with Rob Mehta and his team, please click on the links that are in the chat. So, last question. Would you recommend buying a condo in Orlando and Orlando as a str, given the new laws on condos and higher HOA fees? All good questions in depth conversation. I’m sure this could kind of expand for 30 minutes, but please, we’ll keep it short.
01:09:13
Rob Mehta
Yeah, absolutely. So the question has to do with new condominium laws that have come out since the Surfside disaster happened a couple of years back with Surfside, the building that collapsed due to poor maintenance. So the Florida legislature in the last two years has put out a number of new legislation. You can google it. So I’m not going to go into it right now in the interest of time. Those apply to high rise condos and the vast majority of the legislation has to do with older buildings, you know, 20 plus years old. So take a look at that legislation, you’ll see it. That being said, I definitely recommend a condo. A condo is a very good investment. There’s nothing wrong with a condo. Now I will say as a generality, if you look at condo versus a villas tend to appreciate better.
01:09:57
Rob Mehta
But as far as if you’re looking at ROI on revenue, again, a lot of that is going to depend on your purchase price, you know, nightly revenue rates, again, which will fluctuate, things like that. There’s nothing wrong with owning a condo and it is a very popular type of booking for the Orlando market. Now again realize you have to buy a condo that is in an HOA that allows short term rental. Not many do. Not many do. It’s a much smaller market than the general market. As I was talking about in the beginning, that we have a lot of overlays, you know, with laws and regulations. So again, you can’t look at the entire market.
01:10:29
Rob Mehta
There is a subset of market where you can buy one, where you can rent it on typically a weekly basis is kind of the minimum for these type of HOAs. But those do exist, but again, it’s not the entire market.
01:10:41
Robert Chadwick
Fantastic. So Rob, any final parting words to the audience? That’s left back on.
01:10:49
Rob Mehta
I know we’re running short on time. I just want to say to our audience, of course, thank you for joining us. My email is up of course next to Robert and happy to answer any questions whatsoever. For those of you that are tuning into Asia, I am based in Asia, part of my time as well in Bangkok, so I’m available a lot of different hours of the day. It’s not a problem. So feel free to reach out and you know, either myself or one of my team will get back to you right away and we’ll get a calendar slot booked with you so we can discuss anything you want. And even if you’re further out in the process, it’s okay. We love having conversations. Even if you’re a year or more out in the process. It’s okay.
01:11:27
Rob Mehta
We can start having the discussion today and when the timing is right, you know, we’re ready to move forward with you.
01:11:33
Robert Chadwick
Fantastic, Rob. Thank you. Thank you very much. And everybody, thank you for joining the webinar. There will also be a recording of this sent out in probably about a week or so after it goes through editing. And keep in mind, again with our series of webinars, on the 26th of February, we will be having a webinar on something that is actually extremely important. And I think, you know, Rob will also appreciate this on setting up a US entity or an LLC to be the owner of your US Real estate. Variety of reasons why you do it. We’ll have an LLC expert on there and can assist you with, you know, all the questions. So again, February 26, 9am Singapore time. Thank you again, everybody. Thank you.
01:12:24
Rob Mehta
Rob.
01:12:25
Robert Chadwick
We really appreciate you and your team working with us to get this out into our audience. And again for everybody, thanks again. Enjoy the morning, evening, afternoon, wherever you may be and we will see you February 26th. Thanks, Rob.
01:12:40
Rob Mehta
Thanks everybody.
Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated, so kindly pardon any transcription or grammatical errors that may be present.
