Why Buying a Short Term Rental in Broken Bow Is a Smart Move for Investors

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 one of the Short Term show special episode series on Broken Bow, Oklahoma. So we have our fantastic agent Kathy Craig in Broken Bow here to help us through all of these episodes, but specifically episode one. Kathy, you want to introduce yourself really quick.

Cathy Craig [00:01:29]:
Hi, I’m Kathy Craig. I am native to Oklahoma. I own many short term rentals, seven across the state and 25 long terms. So I’m very experienced in short and long terms. In the last couple of years I’ve helped more investors invest in Broken Bow than any other agent. I was the top agent in Broken Bow last year. So lots of experience, lots of insight. I’m ready to help everybody try to invest in Broken Boat.

Avery Carl [00:01:59]:
Awesome. So yeah, we definitely need that insight. So let’s first talk about why this, this whole episode is going to be dedicated to why someone would invest in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Because a lot of people are like, wait a minute, Oklahoma, what’s in Oklahoma? So let’s talk about that. What is in Oklahoma?

Cathy Craig [00:02:20]:
Amazingly, a lot of stuff. So what’s interesting about Broken Bow is that Broken Bow has been around. The lake itself has been around since 1970. But the larger Dallas has gotten Dallas, Fort Worth, the Metroplex has moved north. The bigger Broken Bow has gotten as far as a tourist destination. Broken bow has 8 million people approximately within a three hour range. So it is a drive in destination. There’s nowhere else in the area within those three hours that you have a lake and mountains.

Cathy Craig [00:02:58]:
Mountains are not something you typically associate with Oklahoma, but they’re there. It’s the washita mountain range. 355,000 acres of it are in Oklahoma and near Broken Bow. So it’s become a big tourist destination in the last eight to 10 years. It’s really become more well known in the last four or five years. It’s started to attract a lot of attention. So in Broken Bow, we have a large lake, one of the largest in Oklahoma, and a river that’s crystal clear, the Mountain Fork River. And it is.

Cathy Craig [00:03:35]:
It attracts a lot of fly fishermen, hikers, kayakers, all this things. So people are coming to Broken Bow to get away from the city. So they have cabins, there’s lakes, there’s hiking. And that’s not something that’s really available anywhere else within that area. There’s some in Arkansas, but not, you know, as close to places like Tulsa, Oklahoma City, and Dallas as this is. And Dallas has been the predominant push for broken bows growth. So more north, they go faster, people are coming to broken boat.

Avery Carl [00:04:12]:
Okay, awesome. And I know everything in Dallas is pushing north, like Frisco. And I know past Friscos even getting. Getting. I mean, Frisco is getting crazy developed right now with like the MLB stuff and the. I mean.

Cathy Craig [00:04:25]:
Yeah, I know.

Avery Carl [00:04:26]:
Yeah.

Cathy Craig [00:04:26]:
And all that just keeps going north.

Avery Carl [00:04:29]:
Yeah. All right, cool. So you mentioned a lake, and I don’t want to get too far in the weeds about location just yet. We’ll say that for another episode. But I want to set the expectation here up front. Can you buy a house on the lake?

Cathy Craig [00:04:41]:
No, you cannot.

Avery Carl [00:04:42]:
And why? Why is that?

Cathy Craig [00:04:44]:
Because it is the corps of engineer land, so it is all restrictive. You can’t buy on the lake. That’s pretty typical for most of Oklahoma. Some their grandfathered in. But you cannot buy on the lake. There are some places where you can maybe see the lake, but you can’t buy on the lake. Typically it’s all just in the woods.

Avery Carl [00:05:03]:
I think that’s good to know because I think a lot of people are like, oh, great, a lake. Let me look for a lakefront property with a dock and stuff. And that’s not what we can do here, right?

Cathy Craig [00:05:10]:
No, we cannot. Nope, nope. No lake. But the good news about that is it the lake becomes very private. So if you’re boating or kayaking or whatever you’re doing on the lake, you don’t have a bunch of houses looking at you. And it’s very serene. It’s very beautiful. So there’s not a bunch of houses spoiling the natural beauty, which is what they were looking for.

Avery Carl [00:05:32]:
Okay, so we’re preserving the natural beauty by not being able to build on it. But just understand guys, if you’re buying in Broken Boat, you’re not going to find properties on the lake. So how accessible are marinas and stuff? Are there a lot of them? Is there just one major one? How does that work if people are coming to D?

Cathy Craig [00:05:49]:
There are, there are two. They’re building another one. They’re accessible. You definitely there are marinas. What’s interesting is a lot of people don’t bring their boats. They’ll either rent a boat, which you can at the marinas, or jet skis or those things or, you know, not as many people bring a boat as you might think. It’s nice to have, you know, you know, a place to park a boat, but not, not as many people bring it as you might think. You, if you’re driving through Broken Bow, any given day, you’ll see a lot of Texas license plates.

Cathy Craig [00:06:20]:
Not so many boats.

Avery Carl [00:06:21]:
Good to know. So when people come to visit Broken Bow, what is it typically that they are doing? What are the main attractions?

Cathy Craig [00:06:29]:
So the main attraction has been just hanging out in the cabin. I mean people are doing it to get away. So they’re running these beautiful cabins, they’re hanging out by the fire, they’re doing all those things. There’s also a lot of outdoor activities. So there’s hiking, biking, horse riding, all the trails. Then the lake itself and the mountain fork river. That has been the main attraction for people just to get out, get away and be in the mountains. It’s an all year round location because we have a beautiful Talihina highway is a scenic highway.

Cathy Craig [00:07:04]:
So in the fall people come and drive the scenic highway and get all the fall colors and all those things. As we’ve moved forward and it’s become so, so popular, there are more attractions coming, more restaurants are opening. There’s now a helicopter service that’ll take you on a ride around the lake.

Avery Carl [00:07:26]:
Oh, hell no. I wouldn’t. Never. We have those here and then, you know, you see them like when you go to Vegas and stuff. I would never ever get on a helicopter.

Cathy Craig [00:07:35]:
I’m not doing it either. Cool part about it is she’s a female military helicopter pilot.

Avery Carl [00:07:43]:
Good for her. But it always seems like somebody dies.

Cathy Craig [00:07:49]:
I’m not a bungee. I won’t bungee jump either. I’m too scared. I won’t do anything Bungee jumping there? Yeah, no, I’m not. I’m afraid I’ll die and leave my children motherless. Even though she’s already 25, I think she’s going to be motherless.

Avery Carl [00:08:01]:
So.

Cathy Craig [00:08:03]:
So there’s all these things coming. But the most exciting thing that is coming is people may or may not know Oklahoma is sort of known for its casinos because I did not know that gambling is legal on tribal land. So because most of Oklahoma is tribal land in some form or fashion, they have a lot of casinos. The Choctaw and the Creek Creek Muskogee nations, they are really big into this. So one of the largest casinos in the world is actually in Durant, Oklahoma. Crazy, but it is. And this same tribe, the Choctaws, are opening a casino in Broken Boat. Now it’s going to bring in a ton of people into the area.

Cathy Craig [00:08:52]:
Just another thing to do. But they have kept the fact that this is a. A cabin area in mind. And they’re only putting in 100 rooms. So it’s not a big hotel, it’s a bigger casino. It will have a music venue. It will have a large. A children’s area.

Cathy Craig [00:09:14]:
So they’re going to have a large shopping area and gas stations, all that stuff. But they’re also going to have a large children’s area where they learn about the Choctaw people. So there’s like a learning center to learn about how they grow their food and how they make their pots and how they do all that stuff. So it’s. It’s going to be very cool. That’s a big thing in Oklahoma. So everybody’s very excited. It’s opening in February.

Avery Carl [00:09:37]:
That’s awesome. And it’s great that there’s only 100 rooms, even though I really don’t think that a huge, huge number of rent. Well, I mean, it would affect it some, obviously. But typically you’re not, when you have a short term rental, not really competing with hotels unless you’re like a condo owner, which condos aren’t really a thing there, right?

Cathy Craig [00:09:54]:
No, they are not. There are no condos at all.

Avery Carl [00:09:57]:
Right. All right. And so casino in and of itself is a destination. People like to go on casino weekends. But something that I have learned from just past lives and careers, my husband’s past career, is that places like that, like Oklahoma, where when bands are on big national tours that they need a stopover, like, okay, well, we just played Dallas and now we’re heading north. Is there somewhere that we can play out of date, make some money on our Way to, you know, Denver or one of the other bigger shows that. That can be a really, really big tourism and income driver. Like, for example, next week.

Avery Carl [00:10:32]:
No, wait, this week? What week is it? Yeah, this week we’re popping over to Biloxi just to go see Guns N Roses at the casino. Because Biloxi, Mississippi, is, if you’re headed east or west from Dallas or from Atlanta, can be a really good stopover to, hey, we’re going to, you know, get an extra guarantee here and then head on out. So that’s not something to dismiss by any means.

Cathy Craig [00:10:57]:
It’s not. And actually, the casinos in Oklahoma are huge. Music venues, comedy venues. I’ve seen a million different people at the casinos here. Everything from, you know, old school. I saw Greg Allman before he died at a casino. I’ve seen Ron White. I’ve seen Don Henley.

Cathy Craig [00:11:20]:
So it’s a huge draw for some really pretty big names. And so that’s. That’s the intent, I think, is to eventually bring a bunch of people through. Believe it or not, it’s already kind of a music destination. There’s a big place called the Saloon, Hodgetown Saloon. And it brings in some pretty big names. I mean, Luke Bryan was there. I’m not a huge country person, but Luke Bryan was there.

Cathy Craig [00:11:47]:
And so there’s been some big names. Tanya Tucker went through there. Who knew? So. But yeah, it’s definitely a stopover place. So that’s really exciting. Just another thing for people to do and another reason for people to come. Now, speaking of that, what’s interesting about Broken Bow is it is typically a Texas tourist destination. So the lake has been around since 1970.

Cathy Craig [00:12:12]:
So as a kid, we all went there, but only because we knew people there. My grandmother was from Paris, Texas, which is near there. The majority of Oklahoma doesn’t know about Broken Bow. So this is one of the most exciting things is the Choctaw Tribe is going to do a huge marketing campaign for Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas. So we’re going to have a rush of people that never even knew about it. So to me, that’s just really exciting. So now we’ll be able to tap into the Oklahoma, Arkansas market, where it’s really been mainly Texas.

Avery Carl [00:12:50]:
Interesting. Only Texas isn’t. Isn’t a bad market because Texas is so huge. But anything else is also, you know.

Cathy Craig [00:12:56]:
Yeah. So the rest is just a bonus.

Avery Carl [00:12:58]:
Yeah. Awesome. So let’s talk about. So most. Most tourism is coming from that North Texas area, but some from closer cities in Oklahoma, not a lot further than that. So Am I missing any, any major feeder cities?

Cathy Craig [00:13:13]:
So Tulsa and Oklahoma City are the others that are within three hours and those are your major metropolitans besides Dallas.

Avery Carl [00:13:20]:
Okay, gotcha.

Cathy Craig [00:13:21]:
Tulsa and Oklahoma City, comparatively, there’s a lot of disposable income in those locations. And so once they start to know about it, I feel like Tulsa and Dallas will be the major groups that end up going.

Avery Carl [00:13:35]:
So there’s still a lot of opportunity for the market to grow.

Cathy Craig [00:13:39]:
I think we’re at the beginning of its growth. Really.

Avery Carl [00:13:41]:
Awesome. Well, that’s nice. So let’s talk about. Since we’re talking about growth, let’s talk about regulations. Are there any regulations in this market at all?

Cathy Craig [00:13:50]:
There are not. There are no regulations. So Broken Bow Hochetown, this whole area is called Broken Boat, but there’s a little town called Ho Chi Town and you’re going to hear it referred to as that a lot. Everything has a broken boa dress. But Hocha Town is the town that was covered up by water when they made the lake. So they’ve actually just recently incorporated a small town. There are no regulations because right now it is the only real major employer. It is not a wealthy area.

Cathy Craig [00:14:25]:
Except for the cabins, this is a total tourist destination. The only other place to work is Tyson Chicken Plant. So if that, this is it. So most people that live there or near there are cleaners, handymen, you know, construction people, all that stuff. So this is, this is their major income. This is the way they make their living. So there are no restrictions at this moment. You don’t even have to have an STR license.

Avery Carl [00:14:53]:
Okay, so there’s no permitting process at all. Okay, gotcha. I would imagine that eventually there will be a permitting process just for them to make a little extra income off of. But sounds like it’s not really something that no one can predict the future. Disclaimer. We’re not predicting the future because we can’t. But probably not a situation where you’re ever going to have to worry about them regulating against short term rentals because that seems to be how everyone locally makes their living or the majority of people anyway.

Cathy Craig [00:15:17]:
Yeah, it is. And even in Tulsa, where I have some other short term rentals, the application is literally an online thing and it’s approved. Like it. There’s no real restrictions. This is. You wouldn’t think that Oklahoma would be a big STR destination, but it is. There’s a lot here and it’s kind of an untapped market. Broken Bow especially.

Avery Carl [00:15:37]:
Gotcha. So would you say that the majority of properties are just like cabins in the woods. Are there any HOAs or like resort style cabin communities yet?

Cathy Craig [00:15:48]:
So most of them are. There are a few HOAs in the bigger neighborhoods, but they’re not. It says HOA, but it’s really not a formal HOA, meaning that they at some time in the future might charge something. But right now there’s no fees and it would typically just be for roads. So I think the most I’ve seen an HOA fee was like $150 a year. I mean, it’s nothing. I think there’s one that has brand new paved roads and it might be more than that, but it’s not more than something like three or four hundred a year. Again, I’m not saying that’s what it’s going to stay, but that’s what it is now.

Cathy Craig [00:16:32]:
So most of them are just cabins with no HOAs. There are a few that have HOAs, but nothing. Nothing like a monthly fee or a condo fee or nothing like that. There’s more, but the only gated property I see is a very large like RV park thing that’s coming way down the road, so. Okay. Or anything like that.

Avery Carl [00:16:55]:
Gotcha. So most of the hoas are just to, you know, road maintenance and to make sure you don’t have a junkyard living next door to you. Right. Okay, gotcha. And so basically everything is going to be a single family out in the woods. Not a lot of condos, if any.

Cathy Craig [00:17:11]:
No condos. And these neighborhoods or this area was completely developed for short term. Short term. So it wasn’t. It’s not like it’s a part cabin, part regular neighborhood where somebody would live. And they’ve turned these into short terms. This is all cabins. So it’s it.

Cathy Craig [00:17:29]:
They were developed that way. The acreage was sold that way. So pretty much you’re dealing with. If you’re in a newer area, it’s all the newer cabins. If you’re an older area, then that’s typically closer to the lake on the lakeside. Then it’s, you know, more rustic cabins that have been built, you know, a while ago. But I haven’t seen anything past. I might have seen two things that were built in the 70s.

Cathy Craig [00:17:55]:
Everything else is 2000 and above. Or if it’s older than that, it’s been completely renovated.

Avery Carl [00:18:00]:
Okay, good to know. So let’s talk about seasonality. When is the high season, When’s the low season? Like when what’s just, what’s the weather in broken Boat? Because you say mountain, but then When I hear Oklahoma, I think warm. So what does that look like?

Cathy Craig [00:18:15]:
So we have all four seasons. So starting in, starting right now, the weather’s starting to change. Highs are in the 80s, lows in the 60s. At night, within two weeks it’ll be highs in the 70s, lows in the 50s and 60s. The winter is fairly mild. We may get a little bit of snow, but not much. We do every once in a while have a hard freeze. But it does get cold in the winter.

Cathy Craig [00:18:43]:
I would say in the 30s, probably not much lower than that. A couple years we’ve had some hard freezes that’ll get down into the teens. And then starting in February, it starts to warm back up again and we have four or five months of 70s and lows of 50s. And then the summer, you know, you get into the 90s and 70s at night. So we have all four seasons. Broken bows. Interesting is that we’re an all year round area and you know, we have a lot of couples that come. So it’s, it’s all year round.

Cathy Craig [00:19:19]:
I would say it’s the slowest in January, February and in August, September. But everything else stays pretty steady.

Avery Carl [00:19:28]:
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. January, February, always a little bit slow because in most markets just. Because people just spend a ton of money on the holidays and then a little bump down when school gets out in May or right before school gets out in May and then right when it goes back in September. Pretty standard. So no snow here. It doesn’t snow, right?

Cathy Craig [00:19:46]:
Yes. No. Yes, it does.

Avery Carl [00:19:48]:
Oh, like every year or like snow like, does it.

Cathy Craig [00:19:52]:
It’s a dusting. It’s not, it’s a, it’s a dusting. It’s not a, it’s more ice than it is snow, but you’ll get a dusting. So where. I mean, every. The rooftops are covered, but typically not inches. We haven’t had inches in a while in Tulsa. Will get inches broken.

Avery Carl [00:20:08]:
Bow.

Cathy Craig [00:20:10]:
It’s been a couple of years since we’ve had inches, but it’s, it’s a dusting. It’s very pretty. It’s nice, you know, but no, it’s nothing crazy. You get up and down the hills, there’s nothing, you know.

Avery Carl [00:20:23]:
Yeah. So we’re not. This isn’t a market where we’re gonna have to like hire our snow maintenance people for the season and they’re gonna have to come every week or something.

Cathy Craig [00:20:31]:
Yeah, no.

Avery Carl [00:20:32]:
Okay, got it. So let’s see, in terms of infrastructure. So you said most of the locals have jobs as either cleaning people Handy people, stuff like that. Is this a market where it’s really easy to find that infrastructure of people that you need to run a short term rental? It is. Okay, so it’s not difficult.

Cathy Craig [00:20:52]:
No, not at all. Okay. Because it’s their livelihood and it’s not, you know, it’s not very far from a bunch of places. So you’re 45 minutes from Arkansas, so a lot of the people may come in from Arkansas to work or whatever. So you’ve got a wealth of. You’ve got a bunch of. A bunch of choices. And there are some really good cleaners and handyman and they, It’s a small town, so they kind of take you on to raise.

Cathy Craig [00:21:21]:
So they’re very good about. It’s very personal to them. So it’s not just a big company that does this or that. These are people who want to help other people and it’s, it’s, it’s kind of, it’s. It’s more of a family atmosphere. They really like to, you know, get to know their people and help them and yeah, it becomes one family. They do kind of take you on a raise. So that’s nice.

Cathy Craig [00:21:45]:
Especially if you’re not local.

Avery Carl [00:21:47]:
That’s nice. I think a lot of investors get worried about, you know, hiring a big cleaning company and it’s a different person in there every time. And then one person doesn’t maybe do as good of a job as the other person. And they. It’s not the same person in there every time. So they’re missing things because they don’t have that continuity. So I think that a lot of investors will be glad to hear that.

Cathy Craig [00:22:08]:
And that’s there. Yeah.

Avery Carl [00:22:10]:
Okay, awesome. So what else, what else we not covered on why someone would want to invest in this market.

Cathy Craig [00:22:17]:
Probably reiterating here, but I think the biggest why is that it’s kind of an untapped market to some extent. There’s a lot of potential growth and I think that’s for the foreseeable future. They’re poising themselves for a lot of growth. It’s. The word is out when I go to dinner or whatever. There’s been at least 10 times I’ve been to dinner where somebody sitting next to me was literally from the Smokies, looking at a commercial group or looking to open a restaurant or whatever. And people have said we’re like the smokies, you know, 10 or 15 years ago. Right.

Cathy Craig [00:22:57]:
We’re on this precipice. I don’t, I can’t guarantee anything. You know, my crystal Ball is broken. But it’s. It’s. There’s a lot of excitement that’s happening and coming, and so that’s the biggest. Why. And it’s beautiful.

Cathy Craig [00:23:14]:
The cabins are gorgeous. It’s. You know, we’ll. We’ll touch on this in. In other episodes about who comes and why they come and the opportunity for different sizes of cabins and what you can do with that. So, um, it’s just a very unique market because there’s nothing else like it in the area. You don’t typically think of mountains for Oklahoma. You might think of lakes, but you don’t think of mountains and you don’t think of crystal clear rivers.

Cathy Craig [00:23:44]:
You just. It’s not something you think of. So the word has gotten out and it’s, you know, it’s. It’s been. It’s been exciting, and it’s nice to see the growth for the area.

Avery Carl [00:23:55]:
Awesome. So lots of commercial development on the horizon. You know, something I’ve noticed since you mentioned the Smokies is that a lot like the. The middle of the road cabin in Broken Bow is like what a luxury cabin in the Smokies is. The. The properties are just really nice in.

Cathy Craig [00:24:14]:
Yeah, they’re very nice. And. And a lot of it is because they’re pretty new. I mean, you know, and that’s the thing. The growth is so new that the cabins are new. So. And you got to remember, the people that are coming are from Dallas, one of the wealthiest cities in the country. So the people that are coming there are demanding a certain kind of thing that they want to rent.

Cathy Craig [00:24:39]:
So. And we have all, you know, we have people that want more rustic and all those things. And we’ll go into that later. But it’s just a. And. And when Tulsa gets on board with this, Tulsa’s has a massive amount of expendable income. It’s a very wealthy city. And again, these people are going to be looking for a certain type of place to stay.

Cathy Craig [00:25:03]:
Not everybody, but, you know, a lot of people.

Avery Carl [00:25:05]:
Gotcha. Well, I mean, I think everybody likes a nice, nice place to stay.

Cathy Craig [00:25:09]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Avery Carl [00:25:10]:
Yeah. All right, well, before we go, is there anything else that we didn’t cover that you think the listeners would benefit from hearing about why they might want to invest in. I’d like to point out, guys, that Broken Bow is not a cheap market. I think that a lot of people hear Oklahoma, and they hear like, we’re kind of at the beginning of the growth of this area, and they think that it’s going to be cheap and Broken Bow is not cheap. It, it’s a nice, you’re going to get a nice property but you’re going to pay for it, right?

Cathy Craig [00:25:38]:
You are going to pay for it. And you know, right now things are a little bit lower than they had been. So that’s a good thing price wise. But yeah, no, it can be, it can be expensive. I think the revenue is there a lot of times to, to compensate for that. But yeah, you’re not going to get a cheap property in Broken Boat. No, not at all.

Avery Carl [00:26:02]:
Yeah, not a budget market.

Cathy Craig [00:26:04]:
It’s not a budget market. However, I’ll just point this one thing out. Our taxes are low. So where, if you’re in a Texas market where you’re property taxes are 3%, our property taxes are 1%. So you know, there is a trade off there. I mean that does save you quite a bit of money on stuff. So there’s definitely, there’s definitely benefits to that part.

Avery Carl [00:26:29]:
All right, I kind of answered that question that I asked you. Did you have anything that you feel like.

Cathy Craig [00:26:34]:
Oh, I think, you know, I think just the potential for the market is really exciting and it’s a beautiful area that a lot of people don’t know about. So that’s the great part.

Avery Carl [00:26:46]:
Okay, well guys, that wraps up episode one of Broken Bow. Stay tuned for everything else that you might want to know about Broken Bow in the following episodes. If you guys are ready to buy in Broken Bow with Kathy, you can email us at agents the shorttermshop.com and we will get you hooked up with her. Or if you just have more questions, want to kind of hang around and hear what other people have to say, you can join our Facebook group. It is public. Same title as my book, Short term rental, Long term wealth. It’s about 60,000 people in there just sharing information, hanging out, talking about short term rentals. So join us and if you guys have more specific questions that you want answered, Luke and I have a an hour long office hours every Thursday where you can ask us anything you want about short term rentals and you could sign up for that@strquestions.com.

Avery Carl [00:27:33]:
we’ll see you guys on the next episode. Sam.