Latest / Short Term Shopping / Low Prices, High Tourism: Why Branson STRs Are Turning Heads

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Low Prices, High Tourism: Why Branson STRs Are Turning Heads · Short Term Shopping

• 0:02
  Speaker A: Welcome to short term shopping, where we explore homes for sale in the best vacation markets in America. Some homes we do like, some homes we don't like. Brought to you by the short term shop. It's short term shopping. All right, all right. Short term shop plus it is party time. Party time. Party time. All right. We're going to talk about Branson today on Market Target. Branson is a fantastic market in the Midwest, not far from where I grew up. I'll let Bill talk about it, of course, but it is just the coolest place. It's got lakes and views and mountains. Mountains and amusement park. And it's a lot. It's really a lot like Pigeon Forge. If you've ever been to Pigeon Forge, you've never been to Branson. It is tourist heaven. Midwestern tourist heaven. So with that, I'll introduce Bill, who's just a complete and total rock star. We're lucky to have him, of course. He's an agent on our team. But, Bill, tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we'll get rolling on Branson.
• 1:18
  Speaker B: Hey, everyone. I'm Spillbeck, Short term shop here in Branson, Missouri. Background about myself, I actually worked at Evolve vacation rental as a buyer consultant. So I worked in all across the country helping people identify places where to buy. That's how I found Branson. It's one of these places I never knew about. In fact. In fact, my first impression of Branson when I grew up in Kansas City was, sounds like some kind of lame tourist place that don't really want to go to. But come to find out, working behind the scenes data, seeing the property prices that we have in this area, was very compelled to say, wow, there's actually some really strong tourism demand here. You made the comparison of how it's similar to Smoky Mountains, very similar occupancy curve, and that we have that spring break through basically the end of the year where summer's peak. But then we keep it occupied here in the latter portion of the year with all of our entertainment that we have. So totally different from some other lake markets, like a lake of the Ozarks, which people ask me is like, is that kind of the same? It's like, no, it's totally different. Like the Ozarks, two and a half hours away, completely different party market, lots of money there, not good for investment. Branson, based on our, you know, we have lots of tourism. 10 million visitors per year stream in, and they go throughout the course of the year, lots of attractions. Silver Dollar City, similar to like a Dollywood and Pigeon Forge area. So we've got all this that's going for it. So it's really been, it's been fantastic because of the, you know, ultimately, when people want to get into vacation rental investing, it's like you got to make sure you're getting something that's going to, you know, get occupied throughout the course of the year. You don't want to have those peaks and valleys. And we have that here. So.
• 3:02
  Speaker A: Yes. And Dollywood used to be a Silver Dollar City. That's one of the funny things about it. I believe they came in and rebranded and kind of gave it. Gave her.
• 3:11
  Speaker B: Her.
• 3:11
  Speaker A: Put her name on it because she's such a driving force in East Tennessee. But they're pretty similar vibe. I love Silver Dollar City. I mean, you know, it's very Midwestern, which Bill and I both are by, by nature. And it's just, you know, it makes my heart feel warm and fuzzy with the, the way things are back home, if you will. It's funny because my parents, I think I went there like one time when I was a kid, and now today my parents go there all the damn time. I'm like, well, where you with this? When I was little. But, you know, it's, it's Midwestern drivable vacation with lots of doodads and knickknacks and roller coasters and, and Ripley's Believe it or not and the whole vacation vibe. So, Bill, talk to me. Let's get the, the condo thing out of the way. Everything is technically zone condo. I don't know a whole lot about that. If you could explain that to us.
• 4:10
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's one of the first things people just need to be aware of is like, if you're buying in Branson, our area has one of the. More like we've gotten our zoning restrictions that's been in place for a long time. So the area identified this whole Airbnb short term rental trend. And we're like, how do we, how do we work with this? So one of the first things that is, well, we don't want to have all these investors coming in, buying up our supply of housing. So we got to figure out a way to manage this. So one of the things that city doesn't have the resources, they don't want to put some kind of compliance department together to really go out there and enforce it. Because this is a, this is an area where it's like, you know, pretty much property rights are very well respected, but the same degree you don't want Neighbors getting upset that hey, I've got a neighbor who's trying to check in and they're knocking on my door because like they got the wrong address late in the night. So they put in what's called performance zoning. So with the performance zoning, they basically push it onto certain areas of town, specifically communities, to basically say, hey, you've got an HOA already in place or a condo owners association coa in place. We're going to give you guys because you've got a resort amenities or because you're in a part of town that we're not too worried about the residential aspect, we're just going to let you guys handle it and we'll give you the go ahead to go ahead and use those for vacation rental purposes. So that is part of the, part of why all of the properties in Branson for the most part in the, in the zero to half a million dollar range are basically entirely condos. Now we do have occasionally some properties like that are downtown that are in like a commercial zoning or in mixed use or medium density. So there, there are exceptions. They're just not something that is heavily booked. That's not what people are looking at when they come here. So generally group sizes for travelers of two people up to 10 or 12 are generally looking at condos to stay in. And then it kind of segues into we have larger properties. So we do have two bedroom cabins. We do have these four bedroom cabins in certain communities. However, the way that they got those set up is that okay, well it's in the community where there's still an owner's association and a lot of times that owner's association is going to be taking care of the exterior of the property and they're going to condo plat these. And that's what sometimes what you'll hear is someone say as a detached condo, it's basically a standalone, looks like a cabin, feels like a cabin, it is a cabin. But there's just that because it's allowed for use as a vacation rental, it's in a community that has basically the ownership of making sure everyone's compliant, everything looks good and working smoothly. And that's one of the factors. So what's interesting enough is you'll see these like 7, 8, 9, even 10 bedroom lodge properties and those will be in community associations as well. So that is one of the things that most markets coas are bad. Don't get one with an hoa. Granted, it's like you have to like you cannot, I don't say universally, but 99% of the options that are available out there are going to be ones that are in owner's associations.
• 7:25
  Speaker A: Thank you. You mentioned a term that I did not catch, something to do with the name of. It's not. Not a condo community, but a condo something.
• 7:34
  Speaker B: Condo owners association.
• 7:35
  Speaker A: No, no, not the owner's association.
• 7:37
  Speaker B: The detached condo.
• 7:38
  Speaker A: Detached condo. Okay.
• 7:40
  Speaker B: Attached condo.
• 7:41
  Speaker A: Okay. So this is very similar, I would guess, to what is referred to in other areas as a putt. Is that, Is that.
• 7:49
  Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
• 7:49
  Speaker A: Fair to say.
• 7:51
  Speaker B: Synonymous.
• 7:51
  Speaker A: Okay, synonymous. So a planned unit development is what we would call this in many states, including Tennessee, which we keep bringing that up. Up that comparison, which is exactly what he's talking about. But for whatever reason in his state or your county or whatever the jurisdiction is there, they've called this a detached condo as opposed to a pud planter planned unit development. Okay, cool. So, and really, just to reiterate and correct me if I'm wrong, what that means is you own the building, which is a single family home, and the dirt directly underneath it, but the dirt one inch to any side of it is owned by the community. Is that about right?
• 8:36
  Speaker B: Some of them are different, but that's mostly accurate. That's some communities you'll own the lot that it's on and you'll have freedom to do whatever you want with it, but the lot is not very big. I mean, we're not even. There's no acreage to speak of. It's just like you own 10, 10, 20ft that way, that way, and then your backyard in some cases. But yeah, for the most part it is like the, the exact way you explained it.
• 9:00
  Speaker A: Okay. And this was done so that the city and or county could easily kind of differentiate properties that are for rent overnight or properties that are more suitable for the locals to live in. Is that fair to say?
• 9:13
  Speaker B: Correct.
• 9:14
  Speaker A: Okay. Could I rent overnight a home that's not a detached condo? Just.
• 9:23
  Speaker B: Good. There are people that are doing it off. Off. Under the, under the radar, we'll say. So it's a complaint based. So basically Taney county is the one that's put these rules in place to answer that. Taney county is what encompasses basically the eastern portion of the lake and pretty much all of where the Branson area is. And there are handfuls of people out there doing that. And that becomes something I've. I've had to work through some interesting scenarios where people are like, hey, we use it as a vacation rental, come buy it. We've got it listed as, as such, and Then you start to say, okay, well, let's go do the due diligence. It looks like it's an R1, which is residential only, so do you guys have a special use permit? They're like, well, you know, no one's ever really said anything about that. And you're like, oh. So it just becomes a. We don't want to get someone into. Into something that eventually, if enforcement gets worse or changes, then you don't have anything to cover your butt. I see.
• 10:19
  Speaker A: So R1 we want to stay away from.
• 10:21
  Speaker B: Correct. Correct.
• 10:23
  Speaker A: What is the zoning for?
• 10:24
  Speaker B: Is it R2 for vacation rental?
• 10:28
  Speaker A: Yeah. For the detached condo. What? You know what the zoning code is.
• 10:31
  Speaker B: It actually changed it to NR for nightly rental. It's another term that we use here. Branson. Everyone says nightly. I don't know why, but it's NR1 and NR2, and our one is for single family zoned. And then NR2 are for multifamily, aka your traditional condo, so.
• 10:48
  Speaker A: Oh, traditional condo. Okay, cool. So art.
• 10:51
  Speaker B: And then there's. This is why it gets complicated, too, because there's a city of Branson that has its own set of restrictions and zoning, and then the Taney county area that's outside of city limits has its own separate zoning. So if someone's trying to, like, find that needle in a haystack, I recommend, like, it's kind of hard to do that. It's just. It's. It's really challenging to go find something like that.
• 11:15
  Speaker A: Got it.
• 11:15
  Speaker B: Okay. That's why I usually have initial conversations. Say, hey, whatever I send you, this is. This is pretty much the list. Now. There might be something I missed, but for the most part, this is. This is what we've got.
• 11:27
  Speaker A: Wonderful. Wonderful. Would you mind sharing a screen and walking us around your lovely town, maybe on a map?
• 11:33
  Speaker B: Love to.
• 11:34
  Speaker A: Wonderful.
• 11:35
  Speaker B: It's my favorite part. Love them. I love the map view. So here we are. Let's go all the way out. So when people think of Branson, it's like, what part of the country is it? It's right on the southern border of Missouri. So lots of tourists are coming in from Kansas City, St. Louis, Tulsa, and just all the rural areas in between. If you think about our. Our. Our demographic or our avatar that's coming into Branson, you get someone that's in a small town in Kansas, like, I don't know, an emporia, and they've got family that's in Arkansas. It's like, hey, do you want to come hang out with us in our small Town and, I don't know, hang out. It's like there's not much really going on. It's like, well, why don't we go to Branson as a good place in the middle of the meeting ground. We're lots of places to stay, lots of entertainment. So zoom in. You can see this is Table Rock Lake. Table Rock Lake, operated by the Corps of Engineers. I think some people have the impression that, hey, if I'm going to buy in a lake market, I got to have a lakefront property. Interestingly enough, Corps of engineers owns all of the lake frontage. So that's something that if you go look around the lake, there's a lot of trees. And all of the ownership of a lake frontage is by the Corps of engineers. So they don't let people own a property, clear cut it and get set up. Same thing with boat slips. The corps of engineers actually has zoning specifically for boat slips. So if someone wants to buy a house on the lake, you'd also have to have that slip zoned for. I think it's some kind of special zoning designation that allows you to rent it out. So if someone's like, hey, I want to go to Branson, but I want a lake house. It has to have a slip because we got a boat we want to rent it to too. It's like that is impossible to find. So that's why it's like if we look at where, where Ranson is as a whole, you know, we've got ourselves the downtown area, you know, 76, this, this or 65. Excuse me, 65 is the main highway north, south that most travelers are coming in. So when people are coming into Branson, this is the main exit that they're getting off on. And we'll even do like a little will pivot to see. So if you go to the east, this is our downtown Branson area. Not huge. We've got a little river which is Lake Taneycomo, runs off of the dam. But this is the Branson landing area. So this is a mixed use area with restaurants, shopping, really fun entertainment, Bass pro shop. So this is an area that lots of tourists traps and five and dime shops and, and restaurants. So when we orient ourselves and pull ourselves back out, that's basically, this is the end of 76. This is like the eastern edge of what's called the Branson strip. And then when you go west on the Branson strip, that's when you start to run into more attractions, more restaurants, more of all of the, the things. So like right here, you can see this is one of the theaters. So Branson has more theater seats than any other place in the country for live shows. In fact, more so than Las Vegas. So lots of tourists on this road. This is like our equivalent of the. What's the one in Pigeon Forge, Luke? The park?
• 14:56
  Speaker A: The parkway?
• 14:57
  Speaker B: Yeah, this is. This is that basically the same exact thing. So as you can see, you know, you've got mountain coasters right across, you know, from grocery stores, you've got your hotels, you've got all these restaurants, all these things. You can see parking lots jam packed with cars. So you can even see on the. On the map, too, that this. This road will get really backed up. So in peak season, if you try to show properties, I generally say, hey, you know, month of July, don't even come to town because everything's gonna be booked. It's madness here. So the. The Strip is pretty. I don't know how long it is, but it kind of runs along here, you know, Hollywood Wax Museum, Titanic Museum, again, similar type of attractions that you'll get for the Pigeon Forge area. And then it basically runs just to about. Just about here, the Butterfly Palace. So that's like where I think of as the Branson Strip. So basically, when people are coming to Branson, this is the epicenter that we have our map centered around. So then if you look at VRBO or Airbnb and you say, I want to go to Branson, you'll see there's a correlation. There's a lot of properties that are rented in some various communities here in the central area, this is one of the main condo areas. So we got Fall Creek Point Royale. I own a property here in these little teal roof buildings, and Meadowbrook. So there's like, probably. Probably 1500 to 2000 condos in this area right here. So that is where a lot of the algorithms for VRBO, Airbnb will push you, if you're looking for two people, to about 10 people. And then if you zoom out, the other main thing, attraction that people come to Branson for is Silver Dollar City. So Silver Dollar City, here's the actual amusement park. You can see all the walkways. You see the outlines of these roller coasters. Obviously, lots of parking that they have there. So that's at the northern end of Indian Point. Indian Point is its own township. It's kind of weird because some of it's like, technically an Indian Point, but also in Branson, or sometimes it's noted as Branson West. Branson west is More. It's not really touristy. But this, this area from basically Silver Dollar City all the way down to the Table Rock and then probably, I don't know, five, ten minutes outside of that because we have some communities down here in the Hollister Ridgedale area. This is actually where all Johnny Morris's stuff is. Johnny Morris is the guy that owns Bass Pro Shop. So he's our, our richest person in the area. A lot of high end nice things. So Payne's Valley Golf Course, he actually designed that with Tiger Woods. He said, hey Tiger, go build a golf course. I'm a billionaire. Let's go do it. Then you've got more developments like this Thunder Ridge Nature Arena. We had some pretty big shows that came in, like Luke Combs. We had pit bull. We had all these, these major artists that they're trying to push this into another major attraction for the area. Big Cedar Lodge, Top of the Rock Golf Course. This is like your highest end stuff. If you ever get to visit Branson, you want to see some really, really nice stuff. The Top of the Rock complex. It's top of the line. It would, it would, it would be a premium destination for any, any place in the country. So, so yeah, that kind of gives us a nice little area of what is where. Where are we going in Branson? Really? Not so much anything north of this Bull Creek area. I mean, you start to get too far north, you're kind of out in, in the rural parts. And same with the east. You know, once you get past like Kirbyville, there's really nothing out there. People are wanting to have this 30 minute radius of where they can get to things. So people are asking like, what's the best part of town to be in Branson? It's not like sensitive like some lake markets or some, some oceanfront areas where it's like, hey, if you're this close to the beach, you're going to be this much more premium than if you're a couple blocks off versus if you're a couple miles away. Because in Branson everyone's driving into town. It's like 99.7% of all of our tourism is people that are driving to Branson. So you have to have a car anyways. So anywhere from this Branson west down to the border of Arkansas and basically to the east side of Branson. So this little triangle is kind of the area I always tell people is like that's like, that's where you want to be. That's where the tourists are. You're within 20, 30 minute drive of everything. And that's, that's basically it. So having properties that are out in like Shelton or Eagle Rock, you know, they have less restrictions out here. This is Barry County. If you really are like, I don't want a condo, I just want a single family home, I want to rent it. You could do that. Barry county allows you to do. There is no restrictions. You could do whatever you want. But to get from Silver Dollar City to like Eagle rock, it's like 45, maybe 50 minute drive and you're going through just these curvy roads and it is, it is not close. And people I've shown properties out there and they're like, Bill, why would people come here? Like, I don't know, to get away from everything. But you, Luke, you know, it's like you don't want to be away from where everyone's going.
• 20:21
  Speaker A: So anyway, are there areas that are more expensive than other areas or are the expensive properties kind of co mingling with the lesser expensive properties? Properties?
• 20:31
  Speaker B: All the, the puds are kind of in these, in these selected areas. So a lot of them tend to be on the lake. So, so starting at the very south, one of the first ones that we had was over here in the Branson Canyon area. This was one of the first like PUD style ones that I think was built in the mid to late 2000s. And these are like, these are all again like residential houses that are all vacation rentals though. So you'll notice that not a lot of them have any garages. They have these parking pads. This is a, this is like these ones are a little bit older, but this is one of the areas that kind of was a proof of concept for larger properties because one of the demographics that books and Branson is multi generational families that are coming from various parts of the country. So if you want to have a place that sleeps 24 people, it's like, well then this is one of your options. So people saw how successful those were, saw how much money they made and they're like, well, we need more of these. So they started building up more, more of these developments just like that. So here they don't even have the Google maps that represents it, but this is actually Branson Cove. There's some properties in here. In fact, I think I've got one. Here's an example property of one in that Branson Cove area. As you can see from the neighborhood. I mean that's kind of what, what these, how close these properties are to one another and they've got the, you know, amenities for everyone to use for pool and pickleball. And then this particular property is interesting because it has its own private indoor pool. So what's great about that is, you know, if you look at the, the earnings on this one, financials were, you know, year over year, like $266,000. Now this is like the higher end one. So purchase price. This one, this one is, I think it's 1.73 right here.
• 22:31
  Speaker A: Is this for sale right now?
• 22:33
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 22:34
  Speaker A: Can you tell me how many days on market? 129.
• 22:39
  Speaker B: There you go.
• 22:40
  Speaker A: Look at that. Are we in a situation again? This is being recorded in the fall of 24. Is it a situation where there's not a lot of buyers like much of the rest of the nation, where you might have one buyer for 20 properties as opposed to 20 properties for one buyer four years ago?
• 22:58
  Speaker B: Yeah, we've seen with the interest rate changes, the buyer demand has definitely been impacted. And I think we've also had a slight downtick in bookings for 2024. So I think there's that, that dual effective some people have. This is, this is like a classic scenario. People have given their property to property manager. They did it in the, in the boom time of post Covid. They made all this money, everything's going great. Then these property managers needed to scale. They grew, they brought more people on. Next thing you know, they scale too quickly and they're not keeping tabs on every one of their properties. And they're starting to see like, like I had a listing where they made in that same community, they made 50,000 and it was a seven bedroom house neighbor two doors down. It's making 140, 150,000 a year. And people are like, well why is it only doing 50,000? That worries me. It's like it's because this property manager they're using is completely mismanaging it. They have almost gross negligence. They made 50,000. It's not on, I don't even know if it's on all the, I can't, I couldn't find it on VRBO as the listing agent. So seller wanted to get out of it and it was like, you know, they started dropping their price. So I think as of, you know, like you said, fall of 2024, we're starting to see a lot of those people question and say why are some of these people selling and why are they trying to get. It's like, well, I think there was two things, price appreciation that happened. Interest rates kicked in you know, general tourism demand came down. So now we've gotten it to a point where the valuation of these properties is actually more in line with what they're making. Because for a while there, some of these properties were just like, sky's the limit. You just put it out in the market. As you know, in 2021, it was a bidding war. So it's just like, just list it. Okay. Those are now going for 900,000. Okay. I guess someone sold one for 950. Oh, someone just listed for 1.1. Oh, they sold it. You know, so this is completely different market we're in and we've got some pretty good options.
• 24:57
  Speaker A: Okay. And so I could throw it, I could throw an offer at that property and not be. I mean, could I offer one. Five on that thing?
• 25:05
  Speaker B: I wouldn't be offended.
• 25:06
  Speaker A: I mean, what. I'm sitting there, sitting there doing nothing. I mean, I think I'd rather, if I was a seller, I'd rather have something than nothing. Right?
• 25:14
  Speaker B: Yeah, I, I've been. I, I think I shared with you in a prior context, but I always keep tabs of what I have for an offer, what the asking price is, and then what we actually got it accepted for. So then I can keep a running list of even the ones that didn't get accepted. We at least know what is the rejection percentage or what is the accepted percentage. So I think the accepted percentage year to date for 2024, it's about 94.9%. So if you take any price, you're looking at it and you just factor that. Now that's just a general rule of thumb that I've kind of said, hey, that's, that's what we've been seeing. Now, that's not factoring in. You know, someone had their price originally for 300,000, then they dropped it to 290 and dropped it all the way down to like 220. And then to do that on top of that, I don't know if that's exactly equivalent because there are people that have dropped prices and, and it's not actually factoring it from the original list
• 26:09
  Speaker A: price, but can you pull that property back up? And I'd like to see a couple more things on that. And if you have maybe one or two other properties you can share.
• 26:19
  Speaker B: Absolutely. So, yeah, this is the 10 bedroom, 171 Branson Cove. As you can see, it Originally listed for 1.85.
• 26:26
  Speaker A: They've already dropped at 1.4, 1.2 million.
• 26:31
  Speaker B: You can see the price drop history.
• 26:33
  Speaker A: I'm sorry, 120,000. Too many zeros.
• 26:37
  Speaker B: So they dropped it. Yeah. And you can see the dates that they are dropping it. Right, so.
• 26:43
  Speaker A: So this is what I'm looking for right now. I mean, Again, this is October 24th. And the way the market's been in the past two years, just like, man, you never know where this thing's going to go in the next six months. If you're watching this in six months. But this is what I'm looking for right now. I want to see somebody that's dropped the price. We don't know what they paid. Does it say that anywhere?
• 27:04
  Speaker B: Usually? Well, the hard thing about this one is because it's a new construction, it had a different address. It was like 6324 State Highway. So usually if it's in the same exact address, it'll keep history of that. Probably go find it somehow, but.
• 27:18
  Speaker A: Right, right. Take a minute. Yeah, I see. Because they didn't. They hadn't assigned it a 911 address yet.
• 27:23
  Speaker B: Correct.
• 27:24
  Speaker A: Okay, cool. But, yeah, this is what I'm looking for. I would like to know what they paid originally. It's not like brand new, right? It's like two or three years old or something. 21. Yeah.
• 27:32
  Speaker B: 20. 21.
• 27:33
  Speaker A: Yeah. So I'd like to know what they paid in 21. I would be willing to guess since it was 21, it's probably pretty close to what they're asking on the original purchase, maybe slightly less. But that is something I would be looking for. And I like to see that they're dropping the prices quite a bit like that. Not quite a bit. But, you know, fairly often they've done six or seven price drops. That means they probably actually do want to sell it. Because right now we have a lot of people that don't want to sell. We got a lot of people that are clinging on to these mega high, almost offensive price tags from three years ago. And those people are just sitting there like, well, if they'll give me the three years ago price, I'll let it go because I never go to this damn thing anymore anyway. It's a, it's a pontoon boat that I don't use. And that creates an opportunity for the people that actually do want to sell for the. For the people that actually do want to buy. You can, you can kind of. You can sniff those people out is what I'm saying. The pontoon dude that doesn't really want to sell it, but he would for the right price. Yeah, that's probably not who you're looking for right now, you're looking for somebody who's had quite a few price drops. And again, you never know what's the motivation on the other end of the. Of the deal. Some sellers are, you know, very private about what's going on. Some of them, you can kind of figure out a little bit better what they're, what they're looking to do. And if you can, if you can score a deal and then at the same time, devil's advocate on that. A lot of times, you know, we're. We're putting a deal together right now, personally, for something where Avery's interested in buying. I mean, I'm interested too, I suppose, but, you know, you start asking all these questions about the seller. Where do they actually, you know, do they live in it? Is it. Is it a vacation home? Is it something that they rent when they're not there, trying to figure out the deal on the seller? But you do get to the point where it's like, dude, who really cares? All I care is do they want to sell it or not? I don't need to know their life history, you know, so there's a fine line there. But what else you got here? You got anything else interesting?
• 29:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. So I think in some of these communities, we saw the prices get into that million to million and a half range and that it was like the, the peak, so to speak. And now we're starting to see, like we mentioned, prices are coming down. They gave it to a rental management company. They dropped the ball. Money's not coming in. They're like, all right, let's get out of this thing. We are motivated. So here's a couple like that are in this sub million range that I think, like, this is a five bedroom. Although it's still 3,000 square feet. I don't personally care for this one in particular because it's actually like squeezed right next to a property to the right of it. And it's canted in a really awkward way because I want to give it a lake view. But I think in these price ranges, it's like there's a. There's a handful of these that are like, definitely worth looking at. Like, here's a really good example. This is one that I've. I've got some people I think really need to put some eyes on. This is a seven bedroom. They gave it to a management company. I just talked about this yesterday with someone, and they've got some amenities, but as you can see, some of the rooms, like, they've got this, this, this. They've got a bunk room that they installed in the attic of this one. Let me see if I can find the photo for it. Just. Just look at those bunks, Luke, and let me know what you think.
• 30:54
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's not something I would do personally.
• 30:58
  Speaker B: Have like a little like a Waco compound up here.
• 31:02
  Speaker A: Yeah, it's almost like how much. How many people can we squeeze in here so that each person can pay very little per night.
• 31:09
  Speaker B: Correct. And then you see that. But then you see, like some of these bedrooms. It's like. Okay, that's like a pretty standard white room with, you know, a little bit of design elements, but love to see a little more. You know, they do have an accent wall. But so this one I want to pull out because885, I'm sure you could probably negotiate that down to 800, 850, I'm obviously just guessing. And then here's some comparable financial statements for it. So these are units that are in the same exact community. Seven bedroom as well. And you can see going through their line, their line by line expenses, and seeing, you know, they're. I'm assuming bank charges, fees would be the debt service. So, you know, if you take the debt service equation out of it, these things are pulling 120,000, taking out all the other expenses, including property taxes, you know, netting 80 to 85,000. So. And that's. That's not even like totally optimized. I mean, I think these in this community could probably hit the. I've seen ones that do 150, maybe even 170,000 for a seven bedroom. Now that's if someone's like hitting their revenue management every day or not every day, but like, they're on top of their stuff. They know how to do it, getting all the reviews, doing all the best practices to squeeze everything out of it.
• 32:27
  Speaker A: So this person owns two properties on the same street. Is that what I'm saying here?
• 32:30
  Speaker B: Correct.
• 32:31
  Speaker A: Okay. And this is with their debt service. Obviously, my debt service would be totally different, but they're clearing like 35, $40,000 on each one of these things.
• 32:40
  Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
• 32:41
  Speaker A: It's $120,000 gross income. Now this, this spreadsheet I'm looking at right here, that is on the mls, right? That's pretty common in your market, Right? Like they gave you this or did you have to source this?
• 32:55
  Speaker B: I kept this. So it's actually super uncommon.
• 32:58
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 32:59
  Speaker B: So it's one of these that people are in this investment space. They Come to Branson. They're from areas where they're buying commercial businesses, cap rates, cash on cash return. And then they come to Branson. It's like, well, I would love to see a p. L. And nine times out of 10, the sellers are like, what's that?
• 33:14
  Speaker A: Yeah, they don't even know what it is.
• 33:16
  Speaker B: They've got a piece of paper that they scribbled, we wrote. We had 150 nights with $500 a night. And you're like, that's not a P and L. But okay, so these are one of those that if I catch them, I have a specific email folder that I keep that's. It's like the investor financials folder. So I just know in future, for future reference, I can pull that out. So that way people aren't looking specifically at the property that they might want to buy because there's a good chance that they either have garbage financials where they've given it. Again, property manager dropped the ball. And it's like, well, you don't want this. That this is grossing $48,000 a year. You're going to say, this suck. I don't want this. But then you're like, well, this is the one next door where they're actually doing the right thing.
• 33:57
  Speaker A: Right. So the. Is the move there. And I think that's what you're getting at. The move there is like, hey, this is what it can make, and maybe we can go get a better deal on the one that they have no idea what it can make. Because the. Am I to assume the guy that owns this profit and loss is a. Is a shark and he's probably not all that interested in his smoking.
• 34:15
  Speaker B: He's not even for sale. This profit and loss is just from an agent. I said, hey, can you show me some for people that you got that are doing well?
• 34:22
  Speaker A: Oh, wow.
• 34:23
  Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
• 34:25
  Speaker A: You're the shark. Is that what you're saying? You're the shark? Yeah.
• 34:28
  Speaker B: Because, I mean, numbers tell, you know, this is what everybody wants.
• 34:33
  Speaker A: Well, and here's the deal. If somebody's keeping this kind of these kind of numbers that we're looking at on our screen right here, this is probably not somebody that wants to sell. This person's not only really good at it, they're optimized. They're crushing it. They're doing a great job, but they're also paying attention to the point where they're keeping. And again, guys, we here at short term shop and short term shop plus, we know that what we're looking at is a very simple document, but the great greater, you know, population in the entire world has no idea what they're looking at now. And really all it is is like 10 different numbers for each property, you know, so. But my point is, is that whoever's keeping these numbers on these, these. David, Shawn, I would assume that's the street name.
• 35:14
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 35:16
  Speaker A: This is probably not somebody that wants to sell because they do obviously care and they're paying attention. And if they did want to sell, I would guess this person's going for a premium. The only reason this kind of guy wants to sell is because he's moving on to something else because he's a rock star. You know, rc, this person's a rock star. So, yeah, sure, I'll sell it, but you're going to have to pay for it because I got to take that money and go buy something else and go be a rock star over there. And as we all know, that's. That's hard. That's hard to do. It's hard to go out and find a brand new property to be a rock star on. It's a lot easier to be a rock star on a property that you've owned for five or six years, you know? So anyway, this is really cool, man. That's great to have. But I'm going to take this information and buy the one right next door from the guy who has no, no idea what he's doing.
• 35:58
  Speaker B: Exactly. Because then, then they. They don't. You. You tell them, like, you guys aren't doing good. I'm not really that, you know, at the price you're asking, not really interested. Plus, we got another one over there.
• 36:09
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 36:09
  Speaker B: And then they're like, all right, fine, sell it.
• 36:11
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 36:12
  Speaker B: Do you want. You know, and I mean, I, I feel bad because, I mean, someone's made some decisions that put them in that position, but at the same time, it's like, I'm here to help the buyers get them into something that they keep forever or as long as they. It makes sense to. I don't know what their exit strategy is, but, like, I don't want to have people buy something and be like, this just didn't work, you know? So that's, that's my main goal is like, let's go find these ones that, like, you said, shark in the water. Let's go get them.
• 36:35
  Speaker A: Boom. All right, Can I see a couple more houses? Just because I like to shop for houses. If you have anything, like, maybe. Is there such a thing in the 500s?
• 36:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, I was actually. Well, you read my mind. So we've got some ones. This is actually people who may not look in that, you know, 700 million or million to 2 million range. They're like, well, I want to buy in Branson because it's more affordable. We've got some really interesting ones. These are the, these are, these are new. This is a new development called Vineyards Terrace. Let me orient you where we're at. So if we're looking at Branson, you know, everything's kind of all, you know, Silver City down here and then the Branson strip. Well, right here, this is, this is the Vineyards Terrace area. So as you can see, it's kind of equidistant to get to almost everything. So you can see the actual, like, layout. Now, the old ones are the Vineyards. These are ones that used to be affordable housing. Not really highly, highly recommending them because they've got some long term tenants. But the Vineyards Terrace ones, I, I didn't really know what to think about them when they first came out because I was like, okay, they're, hold on,
• 37:37
  Speaker A: is this a situation where this was maybe something they were building pre 08 and then they just ended up building that one row and they've waited this long to get the building back going again? Is that what I'm looking at?
• 37:49
  Speaker B: Backstory is actually some. One of the people that went in there when they changed the HOA restrictions to allow vacation rentals, they did a bunch of flips and basically started making a ton of money. And they're like, well, we need to do more of these. Well, there's only so many of them. So they're like, well, what? Right up the hill? They already had the infrastructure in place for a second phase. So that's where the Vineyards Terrace came along. And as you can see, it's up higher up on the hill. If you actually see from the. The hillside, it's got like panoramic views of like the entire Branson area. So very much one of these. That again, I was like, I just didn't really know what I felt about it. Well, I had a client that bought one back in 2021, got it set up. What, 22. Got it set up, started listing it and I caught up with them at the end of 23. I'm like, so how, how's everything going? Because I haven't heard from you, like, oh, we're doing good. So they shared with me. Oh, yeah, we're doing, we're killing it. They have a four bedroom condo that I think they got in the mid-3002 and in the 15 months after they bought it, you could see here's their owner Res. Screenshot. So they made a hundred thousand GROSS With a four bedroom condo in 15 months.
• 39:03
  Speaker A: 300 grand.
• 39:05
  Speaker B: A 100. 100,000.
• 39:06
  Speaker A: No, no purchase price.
• 39:07
  Speaker B: That cost 300. 350,000.
• 39:09
  Speaker A: 350. Dude, you can't be giving these numbers out to people because they're gonna. They're gonna. The phone's gonna ring. Yeah, this looks good. What does this thing look like? Are there any available now?
• 39:23
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 39:25
  Speaker A: Are they cute? I hate to use that word, but that's what Avery would call it.
• 39:29
  Speaker B: They are.
• 39:29
  Speaker A: Are they cute?
• 39:32
  Speaker B: They passed. They passed the. They passed the attractiveness score test. Here, here's a good. Here's a good little viewpoint of them. So one of the things that.
• 39:40
  Speaker A: Actual condo units.
• 39:42
  Speaker B: Correct.
• 39:43
  Speaker A: Oh, he got. He got 100 grand gross on a three bedroom condo unit.
• 39:48
  Speaker B: Four bedroom. That's why, that's why it stands out though, because if you look at the Branson inventory, we've got 901 bedrooms, 2702 bedrooms, like 703 bedrooms. We don't have very many four bedroom condos in existence at all. So you have a little bit extra space.
• 40:08
  Speaker A: Pardon me. This is not including the, the detached condos. This the single family style. Right. That's. Those numbers you just gave are actual real deal condos. Got it.
• 40:18
  Speaker B: I think that's just total inventory count. I don't know if it's like we don't have a ton of like one bedroom cabins in Branson.
• 40:24
  Speaker A: Okay.
• 40:25
  Speaker B: Like, hardly any.
• 40:27
  Speaker A: You never see those.
• 40:29
  Speaker B: Correct.
• 40:29
  Speaker A: There's another niche because that's a big niche in this, in the East Tennessee market. Man, those are. They're not common. They're not even close to common, but they are. Well, they're, they're. I should say they're not abundant. All right. They're common, not abundant. But, you know, they rent like hotcakes. I wish there were more of them.
• 40:50
  Speaker B: So this developer successful down the hill making a bunch of money with these things, they're like, we need more. So they go launch these. These ones in phase one. The financials I got that I shared with everyone was in that building right there, the top right corner. Not even a view of anything. Literally a rock wall behind them. And that's how well they did. Phase two, this is, this is everything over on this right side. Phase two, I think there's probably 40 units that are still for sale. Why are they not selling? Well, obviously people don't really want to go through the effort of buying something that's unfurnished. They're like, there's so many turnkey available, let me just go buy that's ready and set up. Developer had an 18 month delay from the city of Branson from getting their permit to build these things. So they went from like selling these things like hotcakes in the peak to all right, all right, all right, now we can start building and selling. And things were already in motion and now they're in a distressed situation. So hardly anyone's buying these things. And one of the things is with condos specifically when you're getting financing for them, it's hard to get a lender to say yes if the community's not done. So they had to go get commercial loans with 20% or 25% down with an adjustable rate mortgage. So really started to slow interest and be like, all right, I gotta furnish it. Plus the lending terms aren't great, I'm out. Well, I've got someone that's closing tomorrow one and they went with, with a woman with a lender that said, well, why don't we rephase this and do some changes to your budget on your hoa and then we can run this through Fannie and get you a lot better 30 year fixed terms. I think he did 15% down. So these are now considered technically warrantable at least through that lender, which again is huge because then that opens up the ability to get these at a much better, with a much better financial picture on the financing side.
• 42:44
  Speaker A: Okay, I'm learning a lot here. I'm learning that first of all, you're really good at your job. We're glad to have you. I would like to send you a
• 42:52
  Speaker B: gift and we're good man, just keep
• 42:55
  Speaker A: sending people and well, no, you're sending them to yourself. You're so good at this. But, and also we are. I mean, two more things I've learned. This does sound like a decent deal for the right candidate. And we are in a weird market. It is such a weird market. When these, when this developer started to build this building, they thought that they were going to cash in till the cows came home. And then next thing you know, the interest rates quadrupled and now they can't sell these damn things. But they still are an opportunity.
• 43:27
  Speaker B: It's another weird thing for people to get reservations. They said, hey, we'll get, just give us a earnest money, we'll hold on to it. Once we build it, we'll sell it to you, well then you get the inflation with the construction build costs and they're like, hey, you know, we had a contract to do for this. Well now we need to sell it for this. And most people dropped out. They're like, no, you can't just sell me something and then raise the price. Like, that's not cool. So definitely are in a distress situation. And I've gotten some pretty insane looking deals. I mean, these four bedrooms right now, 3,007 years here is number three. Number four, there's only two that are, that are showing. If you see from the list that are the four bedroom. That's. That's interesting because I know they have more. They just don't want to list 30 of them or 20 of them because that looks terrible. Right. When you've got all of these listings that are just sitting days on market is accumulating. So the listing.
• 44:22
  Speaker A: Do you know the, the list agent or the. Are you, you're not the list agent, are you?
• 44:26
  Speaker B: No, no, no, no.
• 44:26
  Speaker A: But I mean, are. Do we need to worry about this building being in trouble?
• 44:33
  Speaker B: I haven't heard anything that would make, make it sound like they're going to be going bankrupt.
• 44:37
  Speaker A: Right?
• 44:37
  Speaker B: They just, they're just taking a haircut on that huge profit that they thought they were going to get.
• 44:41
  Speaker A: Okay, great. Okay, there's an opportunity. What else you got? You got a single family home in the 500s somewhere in that neighborhood. Like, what's the lowest I can go on a stick built, you know, detached condo. And for those of you that missed it, everything in this market is called a condo, even if it's a house, with few exceptions.
• 45:04
  Speaker B: So some of that are downtown. Here's a, Here's a flip one or excuse me, a rehab job. This was commercially zoned. It's 315,000. This would be. Someone has to go in there and like totally do. Do the works to it. It's again, because it's, it's where it's located. It's kind of in the way right next to the Branson Landing. You could walk just Bass Pro shop. But this place, I mean, it's. It's going to take a lot of work.
• 45:35
  Speaker A: It's kind of cute though. I mean it's probably not very Branson looking. That looks a little bit more like Savannah.
• 45:42
  Speaker B: Yeah. So this one I, I showed someone a little bit ago. It's just. It would need to be someone who. Yeah, someone who's got that like, hey, I have a skill set with flipping properties. I want to do this. I want to have that upside with the equity, you know, for 315. I think if you rehab this thing, it'd probably be worth 5, 600,000, maybe 700. But anyway, that's, that's one that I think is another good money making opportunities. Anyone who had that skill set, days
• 46:11
  Speaker A: on market on that thing.
• 46:13
  Speaker B: This one's 43.
• 46:15
  Speaker A: Okay,
• 46:18
  Speaker B: let me pull up a, pull up another one of those like detached single family ones.
• 46:25
  Speaker A: Was that total number on the market in your area? 4,100 properties or is that like the entire county?
• 46:32
  Speaker B: That's just everything. Yeah, it's just everything. Here we go. Here's some six. These are four bedroom cabins for 647. There should be one in here for. Maybe it got sold, huh? Maybe got sold. But imagine, close your eyes and imagine this exact, this exact style property and listed for right around 400, 425,000.
• 47:01
  Speaker A: So I scroll through it, if you don't mind. Yep. Scroll. Oh, it's on the water.
• 47:06
  Speaker B: Yep.
• 47:07
  Speaker A: What is that? Just like a. Would you call that a pond? What is that?
• 47:10
  Speaker B: Yeah, pond. It's in a golf community. This is in Stonebridge.
• 47:16
  Speaker A: The pond seems to me it would be desirable. Yeah, I mean, I would assume. I don't know. Okay, we need some updates here.
• 47:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, they're, they're all, they were all like, almost like no uniqueness. The developer put up a bunch of them. They've all got these little tubs, you know, same kind of trim, carpets. Etc. So. Yep, I think for the asking price of 647, it's a little steep. Yeah. But actually I know why. Because my price isn't in descending order. I'm like looking for someone. Where is this thing? I think one of these two bedrooms would actually be a better, better option because it's for 3.99. Maybe try to snag it for like 350 to 375. Again you kind of get the same concept a little more cozier. Probably have a better occupancy rate.
• 48:10
  Speaker A: Oh, these are cool, man. I mean. Yeah, this needs work, right? It does.
• 48:14
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 48:14
  Speaker A: It's honestly, the pictures are the worst part of it. But yeah, carpet is already. Yeah, right. Yeah, carpet's horrible. That, that little. What do you call that, a Florida room?
• 48:27
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's a little sun porch. Kind of sun porch. See the sun, but keep going.
• 48:32
  Speaker A: I want to see, I want to see more pictures of this house. I like it.
• 48:35
  Speaker B: Let's see what. There's actually another one. I just thought of that. Love to share. It's over in the Crown View area. This is one that when my parents and I came to town in January of 2020 was standing in it again. Having worked at evolve, I knew how much money these things made. It's listed for like 375. I'm like mom, dad, go buy this now. Yeah, because these things clear 90 to $95,000. If you're self managing, you're optimizing it so you know for 539 asking price. It's not amazing but it's not, it's not bad. These were comparable to those ones that I showed at stonebridge for the 629,000 price. Again this is like a better location. Arguably it's right next to Silverdark City, but again kind of the same kind of concept.
• 49:23
  Speaker A: Wait a minute, wait a minute. This is great. I like this. So 539. How many bedrooms? Four bed good night days on market 17. Oh okay, that's a little, little light for to get me super excited right now. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't offer need some updates. Those stupid tubs, I hate those.
• 49:45
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's interesting but when these were these shot up to 600 06:50 I remember thinking about that's just not good. That's just not going to work. So now that they've come back to reality and maybe some negotiability on the table, it's like this is better. This is a lot better.
• 50:04
  Speaker A: And that's the weird part about the market right now, especially as a new buyer. It's like okay, how do I find the guy that didn't pay 2022 because he's in trouble and like hating life right now or 21 price really be 21 summer of 21 and how do I find okay, not that guy. And then how do I find the guy that I don't, there's another guy I don't want to find and that's the guy who want. He'll, he's still committed to that damn 20, 21 price for whatever reason, whether he needs it or he just wants it. We see that. And then out there's a third type of a seller right now out there somewhere is the guy. That's this guy I think that has decided to be realistic and he's not sitting there saying well my house is actually worth this much. I can't sell my house. I'm not selling my house because it's worth this much. Well, guess what your house is worth, what somebody will freaking pay for it. I hate to tell you, but at the end of the day, it's no different than motorcycles or cars or anything else your house is. Or you're. It's literally whatever you can get for it on freaking Facebook marketplace for your four wheeler. That's what your shit is worth. Pardon my language. And this guy, this guy, I can't see an address. Willow. Willow Oak, 35 Willow Oak. Seems to have figured that out. I like this. This is a house that I would pursue. A little bit heavier than the guy who bought it in July of 2020. When did this guy buy this?
• 51:38
  Speaker B: 2013, maybe.
• 51:39
  Speaker A: See? 265. 265 and 13. That's the guy I'm looking for. This guy has the ability to be realistic about what things are worth today. There are some people who are not able to be realistic about that, and those are the ones that we kind of have to avoid. That's hopefully not the house you fall in love with because then you're going to get into this bidding war with somebody who needs or just wants more money. But yeah, now I'm fired up. Let's go. Oh, I did have a couple more questions. Licenses, permits. Pretty cut and dry there. We just need business license or how does that go in a nutshell? Yeah.
• 52:22
  Speaker B: If you're in the zone areas just getting here. If you're in the city of Branson, you have to go get a business license. I think it's only like $50. There's a huge. They may have actually increased it to 100, but it's not huge amount of money, just some paperwork. Go get it filled out. If you're from out of state and you do an llc, you do need to have a registered agent to do the foreign LLC thing. You have to register your property with the state and then they send you. I wish I had it. It's in my file. But it's like a little merchant license, but basically county and city. If you're outside of the city limits, you don't even need the city permit. There is a fire inspection that they do. They do it basically when you purchase it. So most of these places already have fire suppression installed. This is one of these markets that. That was like one of the very first things that places had in order to do it. So that's not a major headache. You just do that, that. And basically that's it.
• 53:26
  Speaker A: And Airbnb and Verbo are collecting and paying most of our taxes. Or am I doing that myself.
• 53:32
  Speaker B: Yep. They're doing most of the remitting, so.
• 53:35
  Speaker A: Okay. One more thing about your location. It is drive, it's a driving situation. Is that fair? Safe to say like getting there by airplane is kind of difficult.
• 53:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. As you know, I'm heading to New York tomorrow, so I'm going to Kansas City tonight so I can catch my 9am flight tomorrow morning. So, so people, people come to town. It's like, where do I fly in? Well, you can look at northwest Arkansas which is about 90 minute, maybe 2 hour drive depending on which route you take. Springfield has flights, but Springfield is not a major airport. It's one of these that like if you fly Delta, you can only go to Atlanta. So if you're flying from Denver to Branson through Delta, you're actually going to go to Atlanta and then come back. So that's one of the little challenges of Branson if you're trying to be a jet setter.
• 54:29
  Speaker A: Right? Yeah, that is the thing. But again it's, it's actually even probably better for guest purposes because there's a lot of people in that area and flying places is a pain. So that's one of the reasons why it works geographically for such large tourism numbers. But it is as, as an owner that's trying to get there and you know, use your own property. If you're from, you know, Portland or something that, that can be a thing.
• 54:59
  Speaker B: Well, what a very robust Lyft or Uber scene, I'll say that. Oh, just everyone's already got a car. Why would you, why would you need that? Right?
• 55:09
  Speaker A: That's true, that's true. Yeah. Unless you're at the bar.
• 55:13
  Speaker B: True.
• 55:14
  Speaker A: Okay. What else do I need to know? Sounds, sounds like we covered, I think pretty much everything. I don't have any more questions written down. Anything else in closing here about good old Branson?
• 55:27
  Speaker B: Usually the two main things I talk about is the zoning, but then the, the lending side of things. A lot of lenders are actually starting to open up to some of these more detached properties and then just figuring out ways to make them work. But the whole non warrantable condo thing has caught some lenders in some transactions and I have a whole podcast about that. So that's good to check into because I get into storytelling mode of nightmare minefield situations where lender says it's all good to go, they're not from the area, get to the day before closing, they're like, this is a condo. Tell you need to bring double the down payment tomorrow. It's like that's not good. So. So just I always do upfront vetting of, hey, if we know that, we can close with this lender or they've given us assurances that their product works for what we're doing. You basically go through the zoning stuff, and I send the list of properties, get a good lender. Everything else is just analyze the deal and go get it. And that's it. That's all you got to know.
• 56:32
  Speaker A: Okay. Cool. All right, man. Well, you've been wonderful. I think we covered pretty much everything. And of course, bill@theshorttermshop.com. i assume that's your email.
• 56:44
  Speaker B: Yep, that's it.
• 56:45
  Speaker A: Just Bill at the Short Term shop dot com. Okay, cool. And as always, thank you for hanging and Short Term Shop. Plus, we love you, and we'll see you soon.