Avery Carl [00:00:02]:
Hey guys, it’s your host Avery Carle with the Short Term Shop. And I’m really excited to dive into the Broken Bow market with you guys. We’ve got 10 episodes on everything you need to know about investing in short term rentals in Broken Bow. A couple notes that I want to give you guys before we get started. Any up to date purchase prices or income numbers on this market you can find on our website theshortermshop.com and if you’re ready to buy with us in any of the 20 markets that we work in, not just Broken Bow, if you want to work with one of our agents in any of those markets, you can email us at agents the shorttermshop.com be sure to follow us on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook at the Short Term Shop and of course join our Facebook group. It’s called Short Term Rental Long Term Wealth. It’s just me and 60,000 of my closest friends in there talking about short term rentals all day, every day. Again, if you need anything from us, you can email us@agentshorttermshop.com let’s dive into Broken Bow.

Avery Carl [00:01:11]:
Hey guys. Welcome to episode two of the Short Term show special episode series on buying in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. We have Kathy here again who you are familiar with. We also have Wilson Van Hook. Today we’re going to be talking about what to buy. So I’m going to let Wilson introduce himself to you guys really quick and then we will start the show.

Wilson Van Hook [00:01:31]:
Yeah, so as Avery said, my name is Wilson and I actually started out as a self manager through the short term shop and eventually just kind of grew from there, was really doing well and wanted to expand. So we decided to start taking on other properties to manage and we decided to expand that presence in Broken Bow which is where we kind of found our roots and started out. And now as of today we manage about 10 properties in broken Bone. So that’s kind of where where I came from and, and where I’m at now.

Avery Carl [00:02:04]:
All right, so let’s start with. Since both of you guys have a lot of experience in terms of what makes a good rental in this market, let’s talk about location. What are the main areas that would be, you know, your top recommendation for where to buy in this market?

Wilson Van Hook [00:02:23]:
No, you go ahead. You go ahead first.

Cathy Craig [00:02:24]:
So Broken Bow is Brookenbow Ho Town is basically a strip along 259. Most of the activities are concentrated kind of in the middle. So there’s a lot of activities 7, 10 miles north of town. There’s not a lot out there yet as far as restaurants or gas stations or whatever. But it is very more. It’s pretty secluded. I would say my ideal location is kind of in the middle. I prefer the area that is.

Cathy Craig [00:02:57]:
You know, if you’re looking at a map, there’s 259 and 259A and there is a loop that goes through the lake. You know, I would say three miles north, four to four miles north and south of that, and then three miles west. And maybe the lake is on the east side. So that’s kind of my ideal location because I like the proximity. Do everything. So you’re kind of out of traffic. Wilson, what do you think?

Wilson Van Hook [00:03:23]:
Yeah. So Hocha Town is obviously the big popping area, you know, and it’s kind of. People are kind of recognizing that it’s a little bit different than just Broken Bow now. And that’s kind of where everything is at. You know, that’s where the restaurants are at. That’s kind of where everything’s happening. And that seems to be. It doesn’t really seem like the price point for purchases is.

Wilson Van Hook [00:03:46]:
Is really more to buy there, hardly. So that’s really the best place to be. But people that are visiting, they don’t mind being where you said, you know, a few miles north of. Of where the central activity is in Ho Cha Town. And we actually have. So our two honeymoon cabins are south of Ho Cha Town in Broken Bow. And those still perform very well. They don’t really.

Wilson Van Hook [00:04:15]:
I don’t feel like we’re missing out on clientele by being there. It’s a pretty good location where people can still, you know, get. Get to where they need to in Broken Bow, but also get to. To town in Hocha Town. Plus any. Pretty much anywhere that you’re at in Hochatown works well because you’re still going to be no more than probably 15 minutes from the lake. So very close.

Cathy Craig [00:04:37]:
I think we have to explain the Ho Chownown Broken Bow situation because most people are going to recognize this as Broken Bow, not Hocha Town. So that kind of confuses the conversation. So everything has a Broken Bow address. So when you’re. When you see a property or you look at it on the Internet, you’re going to see a Broken Bow address I mentioned in the last episode. Ho Chi Town is the original town that’s now underneath the lake. Recently, Ho Chi Town has incorporated and they have signs. But it will be a long time in the future before I think they’re getting a new zip code and but before things transfer, everything is still Broken Bow locals.

Cathy Craig [00:05:16]:
And when you come to town, you’re going to see the name Hocha Town. It gets confusing for people who aren’t familiar with the area, people that are just now looking at Broken Bow. So when I say Broken Bow and I say, you know, the area described around 259, that is technically Ho Chi Town. Okay. Hocha Town does have higher taxes a little bit now where, like where Wilson is a little bit south is. Has a lower tax rate, and we get into that later. But for purposes of not confusing people, it’s Broken Bow. And then Hoja Town is secondary, which is the center of the area.

Cathy Craig [00:05:55]:
I think is probably the best way to explain it at this point.

Wilson Van Hook [00:05:58]:
Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Avery Carl [00:05:59]:
Okay. So Hoja Town is kind of like enveloped by the larger area of Broken Bow. Even though, like, the town area is typically. I mean, is. Is. Is Hocha Town? Is that what you’re saying?

Cathy Craig [00:06:10]:
So Hocha Town has recently incorporated. They have no. And this, you know, we can whatever with this, but there’s no city hall, there’s no fire department, there’s police department, there’s no fire department. So when people are looking for these properties or they’re talking to me, they’re going to see Broken Bow addresses, not Hoja Town. Hocha Town is kind of like a suburb of Broken Boat.

Avery Carl [00:06:34]:
Okay.

Cathy Craig [00:06:35]:
So it gets confusing, but Hocha Town is the original town that was there that was settled by the Choctaw Indians. And so it gets kind of confusing. But for purposes of the conversation, Broken Bow is probably the easiest way to, you know, not confuse people.

Avery Carl [00:06:55]:
Gotcha. So anything else in regards to location in terms of what’s better or worse, or is there an area. Not necessarily worse, but are there areas that have better views or areas that might not have views, but they have proximity? So, you know, they’re either one is good. Is there anything we need to remember or is it just kind of like within the general area is. Is typically good? It just kind of depends on the property.

Cathy Craig [00:07:18]:
I think it’s within the general area is good. It just depends on the property. The casino coming in is going in on the east side of 259, closer to the. On the lakeside. There are people that are going to maybe want to stay closer to the casino. And I think it’s. It’s a toss up all the areas. There’s not a really a bad area.

Cathy Craig [00:07:38]:
The only thing I would say is we are careful about the roads because a lot of them are not paved. So there are certain areas I just don’t prefer because the roads are really bad getting there. So until those roads are paved, I kind of just try to stay away from those areas. But I guide my clients that way. We think.

Avery Carl [00:07:56]:
Wilson.

Wilson Van Hook [00:07:56]:
Yeah, yeah, I agree with that, with what Kathy’s saying. And I would say that, you know, the general area of Broken Bow, it’s really hard to go wrong with location because we’re not like, you know, we don’t have like mountain views. Like, you don’t need a mountain view or anything. We don’t really have that there. Everything’s pretty flat for the most part. And so I would say that you really, it would be hard to go wrong with a location. The only thing that I would say to be, to keep an eye on would be for some of these newer developed areas, these new developments, they’re kind of pushing things out, like Kathy’s saying, down these roads that are, you know, not developed yet. And what also comes with that, what we’re seeing right now, one of the new clients that we’ve been waiting to bring on with us.

Wilson Van Hook [00:08:44]:
There are little ways out there. And like the utility companies, for instance, need to, need to. You have a little bit of trouble working with them. For instance, like Internet and trying to get those utilities up and running. So whenever, if we ever have like downtime, then you may not be like the first one to come back up if, if we have like an Internet outage or something like that.

Avery Carl [00:09:07]:
Gotcha, Gotcha. So roads, you want to pay attention to roads. But it’s not flat though, right? It’s like, it’s. You don’t have like mountain mountains where you have long range views, but it is, you know, like foothill, like hilly area. Right.

Wilson Van Hook [00:09:21]:
That’s what I’m, when I say flat, like, I’m saying flat in comparison to like the Smoky Mountains. Gotcha. But, but we’re not, we’re not flat. There are, you know, it is very hilly in Oklahoma. We do, we do actually have mountains and there’s plenty of areas to go hiking and all, all sorts of things around the area.

Avery Carl [00:09:38]:
Gotcha, Gotcha. Okay, just wanted to clarify that really quick because it’s not like Nebraska flat.

Cathy Craig [00:09:44]:
Yeah, no, it’s not like Nebraska. It is. There is, it is the Washina Mountain range. So it is.

Avery Carl [00:09:50]:
What’s the name of the mountain range?

Cathy Craig [00:09:55]:
Yes.

Avery Carl [00:09:55]:
Okay. All right. Gotcha. So it’s. We’re not talking about the Rockies here. There’s not going to be long range.

Cathy Craig [00:10:01]:
You’re definitely, you know, you know, it, it’s it’s different from other parts of Oklahoma. Nothing like that in this area of Texas. So.

Avery Carl [00:10:09]:
Gotcha.

Cathy Craig [00:10:09]:
You know, it’s. We call them the mountains, you know, because they are in the technical sense.

Avery Carl [00:10:14]:
All right, so what, let’s go back to Rhodes. So something in hilly areas like this that I think is something to keep an eye on is the distance in miles versus the time it actually takes to get there because the roads are really windy and has to go in between the hills. So is that something that you guys contend with? Like, oh, yeah, it’s 10 miles, but it actually takes 25 minutes to get there. How do you navigate that? Or is that something that you have to navigate in this market when you’re looking at locations?

Cathy Craig [00:10:41]:
I don’t think you have to navigate it that much. I mean, you know, we are starting to see some traffic just because it’s getting busier, but not really. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s pretty easy to get around. I don’t see it as an issue, do you, Wilson?

Wilson Van Hook [00:10:55]:
No, I don’t see it as an issue either. I think the only thing about roads is really sometimes in the neighborhoods they’re a little bit underdeveloped. You know, there’s like a lot of like potholes, things like that. So it’s just one of those good things to just maybe put in your check in message for guests that are coming. Just say, hey, just, you know, be aware that you may have to drive down a gravel road or something or you may have to drive up a little hill to get to a particular spot in, in a particular neighborhood. But it’s definitely, we don’t have any complaints from guests or anything. It’s definitely not an issue. So I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t not buy somewhere because of roads.

Wilson Van Hook [00:11:31]:
I don’t really think that’s a, that’s a problem.

Avery Carl [00:11:33]:
Gotcha. All right, so let’s move on to the type of the house. So does it matter what type or exterior architectural style of house we’re buying here? So I think we established in the last episode that there’s not really condos or town homes. Pretty much everything is a single family. But is there a, a particular style or aesthetic exteriorly that we need to stick with?

Wilson Van Hook [00:11:58]:
There’s basically kind of three types of cabin you can get, right? It’s like you can get the old style log cabin, you can get the halfway there farmhouse rustic type, or you can get the all the way there new modern type of cabin. And from my experience, all three do well, and what we’re. What I. My understanding is that there is a market for each type of cabin. So there are people. There are plenty. There are plenty of people traveling that are saying, I still want that log cabin feel. And there’s plenty of people that are traveling and saying, like, I want this new modern.

Wilson Van Hook [00:12:35]:
Like, I want up to date. I want that modern getaway in the woods. And so what we’ve seen, though, is that all of them perform well because there’s a clientele for each one of them.

Cathy Craig [00:12:48]:
I completely agree. There’s, you know, you can do more rustic, you can do more modern. They’re definitely different clients for each one. And you know, especially, you know, with. When talking about buyers, it tends to be, you know, they want to like what they’re buying regardless. So I’ll have clients from the short term shop that like the more modern or want the more cabin y but they all work equally as well.

Avery Carl [00:13:13]:
Gotcha. So would I be correct in assuming or asking the question that typically the more rustic ones are going to be the more budget friendly cabins for travelers and probably the more budget friendly for purchasing, or am I wrong about that?

Cathy Craig [00:13:26]:
Not necessarily. Some of the more rustic ones are the bigger ones that have been there a minute and are absolutely gorgeous and stunning, and they have more of a rustic outside. But maybe they’ve updated the furniture. So most of these cabins have been built in the last five to eight years. There are some that are a little older, but they’re all fairly new. So you’re going to get some that are super rustic, like maybe on the lakeside that have been there for 10 or 15 years that have a very kind of fishing cabin kind of feel. But most of them are really nice. Whether they’re rugged and rustic or whether they’re more modern.

Cathy Craig [00:14:05]:
They’re all pretty updated and nice. They don’t. I don’t think the price range is typically affected by that. It’s, you know, obviously affected by size more than anything else.

Avery Carl [00:14:15]:
Gotcha. But I think we’re safe in saying you want to stick to the cabin y farmhousey feel. And we’re not probably buying like early 2000s brick ranch homes to.

Cathy Craig [00:14:24]:
They’re already available. There’s nothing like they don’t exist.

Avery Carl [00:14:27]:
Oh, really?

Cathy Craig [00:14:28]:
No. So it’s completely str.

Avery Carl [00:14:30]:
Wow. Okay.

Cathy Craig [00:14:32]:
There is. I don’t think there’s. If you move closer into broken bow proper, the city of broken boat, which is, you know, 10 miles to the south, short term rentals aren’t even allowed there. So this is only this specific area. It’s been a resort community since 1970, mostly with campers and stuff back then. So there are no small brick bungalows that anybody would buy or even consider buying for a short term.

Avery Carl [00:15:01]:
Okay. So that makes it a little easier for, for buyers. Yeah, you’re not having to weed through types of properties and saying, oh, well, Kathy, why won’t you let me buy this brick ranch home that’s cheaper than this farmhouse, but they don’t exist, so. Got it, Got it. Okay, so let’s talk about the datedness of, of properties. So to really to do well. And you know, Wilson, this might be one for you since you manage a bunch of them across different sizes in different ages. But how updated do things have to be to do really well? So there are some markets where you can just slap like a grandma thing on Airbnb, maybe not so much anymore, but I’m sure there’s some out there where, you know, it looks the same as it did 15 years ago, and that’s okay.

Avery Carl [00:15:46]:
Is this a market where you really want to be more updated to keep up with the new construction? Or can you, is there, are there any, you know, budget outs there?

Wilson Van Hook [00:15:55]:
So this is where I would say that you kind of start drawing the line between higher nightly rates. Right. So there, there’s a market for people that want a more budget friendly rental. Whenever they come to Broken Boat, they’ve been visiting for a long time. They don’t want to pay crazy rates. They want to come with their family and they want something budget friendly. And those are probably going to be the places that are a little bit what I would call like, outdated for like interior design. So what we, you know, even we had a client that we brought on and he just had this like terrible looking like bedding on his beds.

Wilson Van Hook [00:16:32]:
And we’re like, it’s just time to get rid of it. You know, it’s time to get rid of it and just like put something modern on the bed. Like put something that’s, that’s just more up to date. But you can put, I would say that, you know, there’s some places that it’s like the kitchens aren’t updated, the, you know, the bathrooms aren’t updated, things like that. And those are the places that are going to draw smaller nightly rates. It’s not necessarily that you can’t do well with those. It’s just you have to factor in the price point that you’re purchasing those at. So if you want to go for a place like that at a cheaper price point to purchase that’s fine, but you’re just going to be a more budget conscious rental for guests.

Avery Carl [00:17:13]:
Gotcha. So the more updated, the higher price per night we can typically command. Is that that fair to say?

Wilson Van Hook [00:17:18]:
For sure, yes.

Avery Carl [00:17:20]:
Okay, so pretty straightforward. So this market, there don’t seem to be a lot of alligators waiting to jump up and bite us. It seems to be pretty straightforward. Am I correct in that assumption so far?

Wilson Van Hook [00:17:31]:
Yeah, like, you know, whenever. So far, yeah. Whenever you look at like other markets, you know, like Orlando for instance, like you have to go with, with this like crazy theming and stuff like that. But like here in Broken Boat, it is a lot more straightforward and what people are looking for.

Cathy Craig [00:17:48]:
Yeah, I absolutely agree.

Avery Carl [00:17:50]:
So, okay, so I’m trying to think because this is going to be a short episode since it is so straightforward. I mean, there’s still plenty of time for me to screw this up. So let’s talk about. Let’s go take that one step further. Like in, in a lot of markets and a lot of the other blue chip markets, which I would consider Broken Boat to be a blue chip chip market, even though it’s still technically emerging and there’s not as many sophisticated operators, but there’s still a lot of sophisticated operators compared to other places. So let’s talk about theming and murals and you know, when people go, you know, I’m trying to think of a good word for it, let’s just say all in on the decor. So we’re not just making it a really pretty, you know, modern farmhouse decor. Whatever.

Avery Carl [00:18:30]:
You know, the interior design term is. Now I’m not going to, I’m not going to pretend to be one, but do we see anybody doing. Going all in on the theming and maybe doing a wall mural for Instagram or anything like that? Are we there yet and what are we seeing if?

Cathy Craig [00:18:45]:
So, yeah, I have a couple of clients who’ve done murals and done things that people can take a picture and post on Instagram and then they get, you know, some kind of little rebate back and people do go all out on outside stuff there. You know, whether it be swings or one guy has a pirate ship. Just recently, I would say last year nobody had a pool. Maybe two cabins had a pool. This year, all of a sudden I’m seeing people put pools in. So I think that’s a direct influence from the Smokies. I started seeing that when people from the Smokies started buying in Broken Boat and bringing some of those influences in. But yeah, I mean, people go, they’ll I don’t see like if I, if I see a theme it’s, you know, Sasquatch.

Cathy Craig [00:19:34]:
Sasquatch is a big thing in Brook and Bow. They think he lives there.

Wilson Van Hook [00:19:37]:
So.

Cathy Craig [00:19:37]:
Huh. Does he? Yeah. Bigfoot. There’s a lady, there’s a. Another local realtor that dresses up in a female Sasquatch outfit and runs around town. So why does she.

Avery Carl [00:19:49]:
It’s an interesting way to spend your time.

Cathy Craig [00:19:51]:
So there’s a lot of, there’s Bigfoot themed stuff, there’s fishing theme stuff. But it’s pretty, it’s not anything. I haven’t seen anything too out there. There’s one really big cabin that has an internal tube slide that comes down from the second story. There’s a bunch of outdoor slides that come off the second deck. There’s. There’s definitely stuff like that that’s happening. That’s fairly big ticket.

Cathy Craig [00:20:17]:
I mean these are, these are, you know, people are spending money. I mean listen, we mentioned in the last episode it’s not cheap to buy a cabin up there. But you know, you can buy a one bedroom that does extraordinarily well and put some cool stuff outside and people are renting it all year round. So I do see people doing stuff maybe not technically themed, like you know, a Disney theme, but they’re definitely going with a, you know, they’re going with something, you know, it’s. I do see that kind of thing. Do you see that, Wilson?

Wilson Van Hook [00:20:48]:
Yeah. I really think that, you know, the world is kind of your oyster in Broken Boat right now because we don’t have, it’s like you said, we don’t have a lot of cabins with pools or we don’t have a lot of cabins with like crazy like cool themes or anything like that. A lot of this stuff does look kind of similar. And so I think that for people that come in and are willing to be creative, there’s a lot of opportunity to set yourself apart in this market. And yeah, it’s like there’s the cabin with the huge slide. There’s, you know, I saw one the other day on TikTok. Somebody did this like Harry Potter theme and.

Cathy Craig [00:21:23]:
Yeah, so I was going to just mention that there is a very large Harry Potter themed cabin in Broken Bow that is has, it’s up on a. It’s probably one of the tallest areas in Broken Bow. It does overlook the lake for the most part and it has a moat themed pool that goes all the way around it.

Avery Carl [00:21:46]:
Oh, that’s cool. So is it like Hogwarts Yes. Oh, that’s.

Cathy Craig [00:21:49]:
It’s pretty cool. He’s. And I think it’s done now. It’s taken him about three years to build it. So it’s. It’s a pretty big. I. That.

Cathy Craig [00:21:59]:
I did forget about that one. That one is absolutely totally themed.

Wilson Van Hook [00:22:02]:
Yeah. And like, people are.

Cathy Craig [00:22:04]:
I mean, they’re starting.

Wilson Van Hook [00:22:05]:
Yeah. And whenever I saw that, like, that kind of stuck out to me because it’s different. Like, it’s not something that you traditionally see in Broken Bow. So I think if people come with creative ideas like that, they’re. You’re going to catch people’s eye. There’s going to be a market for it because there’s nobody else that really is doing that. We have a. The last cabin that we closed on with Kathy, my wife and I, we actually, we named the cabin hey there, Delilah, after our newborn daughter Delilah.

Wilson Van Hook [00:22:35]:
And we kind of themed that one out a little bit, just kind of based on like, like the song, like hey There, Delilah, and made it kind of like a romantic type theme. Put in some, like, red decor, some little, like, roses, things like that. And that cabin’s been doing really well. People definitely seem to be liking that theme. Had nothing but five star reviews on that cab. And. But I think that really, like, if you come in and you put in a little bit of effort and you want to get creative, there’s. There’s a lot that you.

Wilson Van Hook [00:23:03]:
There’s a lot of opportunity there.

Avery Carl [00:23:05]:
So if you want to do, to quote Bill Faith, a super property here, there’s still plenty of room to be able to do that because there’s, you know, not a lot of people have pools. There’s not a ton of theming. There is here and there, but you could. That’s something you could do if you wanted to just go all in that way.

Wilson Van Hook [00:23:19]:
Absolutely.

Avery Carl [00:23:20]:
Awesome. All right, well, now that we’re on, it leads me, like, exactly into my next question, from theming to amenities. So are there any amenities that you have to have, like, to just be on par with everybody else? Like, for example, a hot tub in the Smokies. You got to have that. Everybody has it. Do you have to have a hot tub here?

Wilson Van Hook [00:23:38]:
For sure? Yes. You definitely have to have a hot tub. That is a must.

Avery Carl [00:23:42]:
Anything else? You have to have to make sure that you’re just in line with the competition.

Cathy Craig [00:23:45]:
I think outdoors, a nice outdoor space, you obviously have to have a fire pit, decking and chairs, and people really like to be outside. So it’s pretty nice weather all year round. I think the Outdoor stuff is very important. Yeah, I mean, I think hot tubs and fire pits and TVs outside, that kind of stuff is, has become really important.

Wilson Van Hook [00:24:07]:
Yeah. I think what really works well for outdoor stuff is a nice covered patio, a nice inviting area where, especially for big cabins, where you’ve got enough room to have like big family gatherings outside. And then, you know, for honeymoon cabins, it’s like the ones that we have, we’ve got covered patios with the hot tubs and you’ve got a TV there where you could just soak in the hot tub and watch tv, you know, put on Netflix, do whatever. So the things that I would say you have to have would be like an inviting outdoor space, fire pit and hot tub and then a grill. So I would say those are like the, the ones that are at least a must to have.

Avery Carl [00:24:50]:
Gotcha. So not many properties with pools though, and that. I think that could really be a game changer once people start doing that.

Wilson Van Hook [00:24:56]:
Yeah. This new one that we’re about to list with us that just completed construction, they have a pool and I think it’s a heated pool too. So I’m really interested to see how well that works. And I think that that’s definitely an amenity that people will be looking for since there’s so few, so few number of cabins that have them.

Avery Carl [00:25:16]:
Yeah. Okay, so in the, in the world of amenities, you’re still, you got some, some space. Like it’s. Every single property does not have just like crazy amounts of amenities that you have to spend a lot of money to compete with. Like not a lot of people have pools. So if you go to the trouble to do that, you’ll probably put yourself ahead of the pack. Okay, I think that’s enough on, on amenities. Let’s talk about size.

Avery Carl [00:25:41]:
So Wilson, you, you’re managing several across multiple sizes. Do you find that the smaller ones, the honeymoon cabins, stay booked more, but the larger cabins, like the four or five bedrooms, have a higher return on investment?

Wilson Van Hook [00:25:55]:
Have a higher return on investment. I would say the two, the two sizes that do really well as far as return on investment are one bedroom cabins and five bedroom cabins. I would say those two have the best. When we talk about return on investment. But yes, like obviously, you know, one bedroom cabins, they have very high occupancy. So if you do things right, if you follow like the short term shops procedures for like, you know, listing optimization, all the other factors, like if you’re checking all those boxes right. You should be doing 90% occupancy at least with a one bedroom cabin and you can go up even a little bit more from there. So it’s like we are surprised whenever we have a night that goes unrented.

Wilson Van Hook [00:26:41]:
We typically only have maybe like one night a month that goes unrented, maybe two here and there in like a slow month. But we expect to rent a lot at our one bedroom cabins and we get a lot of last minute bookings. Whereas obviously with larger cabins you’re not going to get last minute bookings. But with a five bedroom cabin you’re going to get. When you look at it as, as a whole for the entire year it’s going to be a good investment because you’re getting there. There’s, there’s popular times of the year versus unpopular times so we can get into those times of the year as well that work, that work best. But you know you get, you know you get like spring break, you get the summertime that’s like fantastic. And you get this, this portion of the year like October through December is a great time in Broken Bow.

Wilson Van Hook [00:27:30]:
So you get like fall, Thanksgiving, Christmas holidays and like people love to travel to Broken Bow during those times. So those are like really good opportunities to make money with the big cabins.

Cathy Craig [00:27:41]:
Yeah, I completely agree. So what’s really unique about Broken Bow, especially when you’re comparing it to other areas, Smokies or, or some of the beach communities is our one bedrooms are extraordinary. They are all year round and so they’re the one and two bedrooms are about equal in my opinion. One bedroom is probably a little bit better. They’re great for small families or couples or two couples. So the one and two bedrooms do really, really, really well. The three bedrooms do well but they’re a little bit of a stepchild. I think probably Wilson might agree that it’s kind of a weird stepchild in that you know, if I have a choice of clients looking at a three bedroom or a two bedroom, two bedroom is probably going to outperform it.

Cathy Craig [00:28:28]:
So it’s a very interesting thing. But the one bedrooms are of course, you know, I can’t promise anything but they’re as close to a sure bed as you can get.

Wilson Van Hook [00:28:38]:
I’ll just rank them like in my order of preference for what I would purchase. I would purchase a one bedroom first and then my second in my rankings would be a five bedroom. After that would be two bedroom and then three bedroom and four bedroom would be last. But it’s, and it’s because like so Broken Boat is the drive to destination and we’re Only two hours from Dallas area. And so lots of times people will pick up couples or something like that and they’ll just pick up and go on a weekday. And so you can get really high occupancy. You can have like a whole week like the next week open on your calendar. And it’s not uncommon to just book out every single night for that week.

Wilson Van Hook [00:29:17]:
Still for small cabins, but with what I we’ve kind of seen with the four bedrooms, why I don’t like those as much as other cabins is because it’s just kind of an awkward size. It seems like where based on the price point that you have to purchase it at versus the price point for maybe a five bedroom, you’re just not getting a very good return on. On investment because a lot of people that are booking are saying well rates aren’t crazy different between a four and a five bedroom. And a lot of people I think are just shifting and they just end up booking the five bedroom. But then like three and four bedroom cabins, you don’t. What you’re competing against for weekdays is last minute stays which are groups of two to four people. And so you have. That’s what your rate has to be if you want to book.

Wilson Van Hook [00:30:02]:
People don’t really care. Like if you’re coming as a couple, they don’t care. They don’t. If they need a. Even if the price is the same for a four bedroom cabin as a one bedroom cabin, they don’t care because it doesn’t matter. They don’t need that space. It’s not really even kind of the vibe that they’re going for.

Avery Carl [00:30:16]:
Gotcha. Well, we will. We’ll find out on the next episode with the data from John Bianchi and see you see what the numbers say. But that’s interesting that you’re the. It makes sense. I’ve seen that in other markets too that three bedrooms kind of a weird. Not no man’s land you’ll still make money but the difference between a 3 and a 4 or 3 and a 2 isn’t or sorry, the difference between a 3 and a 2 is not that much income wise. But the difference between a three and a four is a lot income wise.

Avery Carl [00:30:42]:
So we’ll be interested to hear from. From John on that. Is there anything else guys? We’re coming to the end of our time. Is there anything related to location, type of property, size, anything related to what to buy that we haven’t covered that you think our listeners could benefit from hearing?

Cathy Craig [00:31:00]:
Wilson, I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Wilson Van Hook [00:31:03]:
So the only other thing that I kind of have in my notes that I kind of seen working well is that I wanted to talk about is, is a spacious layout for, for larger cabins. So out of the five bedroom cabins that we have, it seems that people gravitate towards, towards the ones that have a more spacious layout. Like a big like open, inviting living area where people can kind of gather around. That’s kind of what people are getting towards. And they don’t. It seems like they don’t want as much, you know, something that’s kind of crowded for, for a living area. I think that we get a lot of inquiries also where people. This is kind of a smaller thing, but they’re interested in en suite setups.

Wilson Van Hook [00:31:50]:
So we have our best performing 5 bedroom cabin, has 4 king en suites and then a bunk room. And so that works out really well. You know, some people, it’s like multiple families are traveling together so they want a little bit of privacy. Right. They want that private bathroom, they want that private bedroom where they’ve got kind of their own. Own space, you know.

Avery Carl [00:32:14]:
That makes sense. Yeah. I’ve seen in other markets where the, the bigger cabins will be set up almost like I call them like dorms where they have a ton of bedrooms. They’ll be like a six bedroom but the living space is just teeny tiny. And there’s no way all of the people that would be staying in a six bedroom could sit down and be in the living room. And they really just make it like a place to sleep and then you’re out doing stuff the rest of the day. There’s anything to any areas to hang around. So we want to avoid the dorm style properties is what you’re saying.

Wilson Van Hook [00:32:47]:
Yeah, and, and yeah, like you’re saying it’s if, if you’ve got a property that can sleep 16 guests but your kitchen table only sits eight or 10 people, you know, it’s like where are people all going to gather and get together? So that I think that’s something that people look for. Actually had a friend recently that stayed in Broken Bow and that was something that they were looking for in particular on listings that they told me was. I was getting some feedback from them and they said we want a place that has like a big dining area, you know, a big place where we can, we can all get together at the same time.

Avery Carl [00:33:20]:
Yeah, I think that’s, that’s smart and important to remember. Anything else that, that we haven’t covered?

Cathy Craig [00:33:26]:
I think we covered it pretty well.

Wilson Van Hook [00:33:27]:
Yeah, I think so. That’s everything that I have in my notes for as far as location.

Avery Carl [00:33:31]:
Cool. Well, guys, if you are ready to just skip the line and buy with Kathy in broken boat, you can do that by emailing Kathy C a t h y at the short term shop.com or if you guys still have more questions that you just want to hear more about this, there’s a few ways you can learn more. Number one is you can join our client. I mean sorry, you can join our public Facebook group. It’s called short term rental, Long term wealth, same title as my book. Or every Thursday you can join our live Q and A session. It happens at noon central. You can sign up for that@strquestions.com and we, Luke and I have each implemented a new talk to us feature.

Avery Carl [00:34:13]:
You can sign up for Luke’s. Luke’s is at 5:00 in the morning. You can sign up for I think it’s lukeruns.com L U K e r u n s and you can talk to Luke about all things short term rental on while he’s on his run in the morning. And mine is just talk to avery.com and we just have a couple slots open twice a week I think to to talk to you guys so lots of ways you can get a hold of us. Told you how you can get a hold of Kath so you guys don’t be strangers and we will catch you on the next episode.