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Comment by bradly | Hacker News Reader

A bought a vacation rental in Hawaii this January. It has been very nice. Purchase price was 510k. It rents for $260-$400 a night and has 90% occupancy rate. I can share more details for those interested.

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I hope you don't get offended by this question but are you doing this legally? I know in some areas renting a vacation home is legal as long as you do the right paperwork.

No offense taken :) Yes, it is legal. In Hawaii the condo buildings are setup to be ran as vacation rentals. Some people do live in them, but most are rentals. The building are more similar to a hotel in that they have a front desk, luggage carts, and things like that.

Definitely interested in the details. ~16% ROI is excellent! Does you have management company that takes care of the property?

There are some more costs. We did a full remodel which was expensive since most things on the island are more expensive (although Overstock and Amazon Prime's free shipping were amazing for buying furniture and things like that). There is also general upkeep, supplies, and vrbo fees. For instance, right now we are replacing the sliding glass doors which is going to be between 10 and 15k.

Hawaii passed law in the past couple years that says you must have someone on the island representing your unit incase something is goes wrong or your tenants need assistance, so we do pay someone to be on call for that.

Do you have someone managing the rental or do you do that?

We have our unit listed on VRBO, but my wife and I handle the inquires and renting ourselves. Most condo buildings will run your unit for you if you prefer. They will take care of everything for you (bookings, cleanings, furnishings, etc), but you make much less. Also, you just get a percentage of what the building makes as a whole, so those rooms are really incentivized to be as nice. We wanted our place to be nice and something we would like to stay/live at.

How has your experience been with VRBO? Any reason that has prompted you not to use AirBnb?

Edit to ask: do you mind sharing which island/area, your rental is in? 90% occupancy rate sounds pretty amazing.

If you do a lot of rentals VRBO is much cheaper. AirBnb charges you 10% per booking vs VRBO's $1,000 upfront and then 2.5% credit card transaction fees. This makes our place much more expensive for a renter for us to get the same amount of money. VRBO also has great phone customer support and it just feels more setup to support your rental as a business rather than your rental as a thing you do casually.

Our place in on Maui near Kaanapali beach. Hawaii is nice because it isn't too seasonal.

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