Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: All right, here we are. In the Shenandoah is the Shenandoah Real Estate podcast. I have Marion here with me today. Marian, remind us, where are we in the world? Like, this is a very large area, right? So can you give us like an idea of, you know, towns and areas just to refresh our memories?
[00:00:19] Speaker B: It is a large area and I can show you a map as well and kind of walk you through the area, but that'd be great. The Shenandoah Valley. Okay, let me pull that up.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Now you can.
I didn't mean to interrupt. I'm sorry.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Oh, no worries.
The Chicago Valley covers nine counties and five independent cities. It takes about two and a half hours to drive from top to bottom, and then there's so much space in between. So it is a huge area, actually, compared to a lot of markets. It's about an hour and a half to two hours away from the D.C. area in northern Virginia, depending on where you're coming from. It's also in great driving distance from Richmond, Charlottesville, Norfolk, and it gets a lot of visitors as well from the Mid Atlantic region, North Carolina, up through Maryland, especially Baltimore, Pittsburgh, even up into New Jersey and New York.
So people come from a wide range of areas to get here. And so there's quite a few different spots within the region that are great short term rental areas.
There are such a wide variety of options here. We have river, houses, there's mountains, farmland, small cities, university towns, resorts.
So there are a lot of options here to choose from. A lot of great short term rental areas.
So there are three all season resorts to start out. The first is Bryce, and that's right here on the West Virginia border. That attracts a lot of folks from the D.C. and Northern Virginia area because it is the closest and easy to get to. We also have Massanutten, which attracts a lot more regional visitors and is big on family fun activities. And then we have Wintergreen as well. Those are our three all resorts. And then we also have Shenandoah national park, sort of defines the area that has over 2 million visitors every year.
And in Virginia, our national parks contribute over $2 billion to the economy. And Shenandoah national park is the biggest and most popular of all of our parks.
There are four entrances into the park you can see here as the diamonds.
So short term rentals do often cluster around those entrances for people who want to visit the park.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Specifically, when you say resort, are we talking swimming pools and things like that or skiing or what are we talking?
[00:02:41] Speaker B: So all three of them have skiing and snow Tubing and all of the winter activities, which does help cushion against a drop in occupancy that you might see outside of the resort areas during the winter.
They also in the summer a lot of them turn those ski slopes into mountain biking. And they have different amenities.
You know, there's a lake up at Bryce Lake Laura, so there's boating and swimming. Massanutton has all kinds of adventure parks and a water park and go karts and tons of activities. And Wintergreen is big on golf. They have spa activities, hiking. There's hiking all throughout the area. So they really kind of COVID a lot of different activities and appeal.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Okay, and is it best to buy in one of these resorts or can I get outside of 1? Of 1? What would trigger somebody to buy outside of one?
[00:03:32] Speaker B: So what's nice about buying in the resorts? Like I mentioned, you kind of cushion against the occupancy drop in the winter. But also there's really strong networks of short term rental service providers.
So you can easily find cleaners, handymen, any kind of home maintenance.
So those are really great networks there.
Luray is also a big hotspot. There's Luray Caverns, which is a big popular attraction there. There's a network of caverns throughout the area, but that's the big popular one.
Loray also has some great areas on the river, seeking the water activities. And also right next to this national park entrance, that's a great spot. As well as Stanley and Shenandoah and then getting down to Massanutten. You can find some places around it, but mostly on the resort there. And then around Wintergreen is an area that's called Nelliesford and Afton. That's a really great spot for the winery and brewery trails that are really popular in Virginia, especially for weddings, bachelor and bachelorette parties, couples getaways, things like that.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: You were born and raised in this area?
[00:04:42] Speaker B: I was, yeah. So I grew up about an hour outside of the region and I spent my summers there going to camp. And I've always spent tons of time in Shenandoah.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Very impressive. Very impressive.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: I love it.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Can you give me an idea? Maybe that's what I'm looking at in the top of the screen here of a house for sale that we may or may not be interested in.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
I wanted to mention too, the Appalachian Trail actually runs right through the national park and Virginia has more Appalachian Trail than any other state.
So just a fun fact.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Very cool. What time of year do they come through?
[00:05:21] Speaker B: The hikers more so warm weather.
But throughout the year the trail gets about 3 million plus visitors on different sections.
[00:05:32] Speaker A: Beautiful. Okay, this first one's a new construction, right?
[00:05:36] Speaker B: No, it's not actually. Oh, let's take a look. So a frames are really popular in this area and you can find them as a really affordable option. What's great about this market is that it's really accessible in terms of price. There's so many options ranging from 200,000 up to, you know, a million, 2 million plus depending on what you're looking for. And it's great for first time investors for that reason as well.
So this is a great property. It's only been on the market for five days. This is in the Shenandoah Ridge area, so you can get some great views. It's a little bit further down on the mountain there. So less so from this property. But it's a great short term rental neighborhood.
Let me take a look at some of these pictures.
And this is an operating short term rental. It's been renovated.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: This is very cute. How much is.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Is listed for? 295. And I think that is kind of at the top of the market range. I think, you know, 280 to 295 is a good price for this one.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: Because it's, it's so nice. It's been redone. It's, it's at the top. I see a mini split. Is that very common, the H?
[00:06:42] Speaker B: It's very common, yeah.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Very common, yeah.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: I'd say it's half and half. Whether it's central or you're having many splits. Baseboards.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: Got it. And this thing is so tiny. And it also doesn't have an attic. It makes perfect sense as to why it doesn't have central air.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Right? Exactly. It's got great outdoor space.
Yeah, definitely. And I would expect this to generate in the 40s in terms of gross revenue. Potentially.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: There's a waterfall on the property.
[00:07:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it's got a nice little creek.
[00:07:15] Speaker A: That's cool.
When you say in the 40s, are we looking at. Because that's a, you know, this same property in the Smokies might do a little better. So let's, let's compare. Just in my brain, that's where I always go because I've been there for so long. Is it going to be lower dollars per night or less occupancy per year, in other words. And again, you don't need to give me exact numbers. You're not Air DNA. We don't expect you to be Air DNA and nobody should. But I mean, are we talking 50% occupied or 80% occupied? Any idea?
[00:07:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I think in the 50s, because this one is. It's not on a resort. It's close to Bryce, about 20, 25 minutes, but it is a little bit more remote.
The occupancy is going to be a little bit lower here.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Okay. All right.
Okay. I like this one. I like it a lot, actually.
You're picking my interest.
It definitely looked like it's set up for a rental here.
[00:08:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: And the area is hip to the overnight single family thing. They're not like, you know, it's not like a oh, we hate Airbnb kind of vibe. Everybody just understands that that's what's going on around here.
[00:08:22] Speaker B: Yeah. In general, the area is very short term rental friendly throughout the region. There are some nuances here and there, like Shenandoah county, you have to get a permit over four bedrooms.
Page County, Rockingham County, Nelson county, they're all very short term rental friendly. There are some areas where you want to watch out for different restrictions, but especially around the resorts, very short term rental friendly since their economy relies on that. And then in general, most HOAs have no problem with short term rentals.
If the property's in an hoa.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: I love it. If I wanted to find this thing, piece of junk like before they fixed it up and fix it up myself. Is it difficult to find people like floor guys or it's like medium level?
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Not at all. There's a lot of great contractors out here. And because it is a pretty wide, more rural area, a lot of them do cover a wide area. So you can get properties in Bryce, Larray, Massanutton, and these guys might cover all of that. So once you find a good contractor, it's easy to stick with them.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Got it.
All right, well, I like that one. I personally would rather have something that needs a little work, but not all the time. You know, if you live 10 states away, it's a little easier to just turn the key. Right. So yeah. Now the second one there does look a whole lot different than that little a frame. It's a bigger home. And what's my purchase price here? This looks like a five bedroom and we're at almost a million.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Yeah, this one is definitely on the other end of the scale. This is right outside of the town of Luray. Luray is a pretty wide area. The town itself is more restrictive on short term rentals. So this is just outside the town limits, which is nice.
10 minutes from Laray Caverns.
There is a pretty Similar comp.
That is a short term rental that's generating about 185,000 in gross revenue for a few different estimates.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: And this has views.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: It does, has great views. It's got almost five acres, so it is a residence right now. But I think that if you put some design elements in here and amenitize it, it could be a great short term rental. Here's the comp I was talking about. So it's pretty similar. Similar location, views and it's got, you know, these design elements. A game room, movie room.
It sleeps 12. So there's not a lot of these larger properties around Larray. So it has good potential there.
[00:10:54] Speaker A: I say, well, look at you. This is a little too Airbnb for my taste on that. That one you were just showing, but I do, I get it. It's probably doing very well because it's so well appointed there, right?
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Yeah, it's doing great.
[00:11:08] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: So I think that that could be a model for this one, that five bedroom.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: This one here.
In your opinion, is it priced right, is it priced high, is it priced low?
[00:11:21] Speaker B: So at this price point in Luray there are fewer ops. It's kind of a unique sector there in terms of price. I do think it's priced a little bit high. I think we could get down into the nine hundreds range, maybe lower nine hundreds, but I don't think it's priced excessively high. It is pretty unique.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: How long is it for sale Is my next.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: It's only been on for 16 days on the market, so it's newer.
Okay, nice back porch here.
[00:11:54] Speaker A: Are you seeing things sitting for a long period of time right now or so?
[00:11:58] Speaker B: Right now the average days on market is around 41 days.
But great properties when they're coming on and they're either priced really well or in great condition or they're already operating short term rentals with proven revenue history.
They are getting snapped up pretty quickly.
I've seen a lot go in under a week, just a matter of days.
And even though we're not seeing so many multiple offer scenarios anymore, we have gotten into with our buyers a couple of those on these really properties that come on into the market so longer on average. But there are, there are some that get snapped up quickly.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: This. Is this a candidate for a second home, in other words, somebody from D.C. that you know, I mean, I would assume you see that there. We see that all the time down here on the beach where I'd like to have a house out in the country near the mountains and Rent it when I'm not there. That's fairly common, I would guess it is.
[00:12:52] Speaker B: It's very common from D.C. area and Baltimore as well. A lot of second homes out here that they do as a short term rental outside of when they're visiting.
[00:13:02] Speaker A: Well, look at you. I am impressed. Go back to the. Let's go to the next property there. I think there was another, a frame on deck.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: So I'm going to skip over to this one actually. This one I think is a great opportunity. This is right inside of the Bryce Resort area. They just cut the price by $26,000 today. So they're eager to sell. It's been on the market for about four months now and it is a classic log cabin. It's highly amenitized. Unlike Massanutton and Wintergreen, which are kind of. They've been on the higher end for a while and are more competitive. Bryce has just this emerging kind of luxury segment that's building and there's a lot of development interest coming in there just in the last year and a half or so. So the demand in Bryce is really growing. I think there's some great opportunities here. But this one is one of the more amenities properties that exist there now.
It is an operating short term rental and it generated $80,000 in 2025. I do think there's room for growth there in terms of management, but I think it'd be a great candidate.
[00:14:09] Speaker A: I like this one a lot too.
Maybe I should ask you to pull me one that you don't like.
Why did you skip over that last one, by the way? Did you. Do you not like that one?
[00:14:23] Speaker B: No, I think that's great. But I wanted to point one out as well.
This one is also in Bryce. I think it's a great candidate for that sort of luxury segment that I mentioned.
It's priced well, but I've been speaking with the seller directly and they're willing to offer $30,000 in either closing cost credits or price reduction or some combination to a buyer because they want to move it. So that could be very appealing to some buyers as well, especially since it needs to be furnished. But it's got views, it's brand new, it's set up as a short term rental. The seller develops these homes specifically to sell or operate themselves as short term rentals. So I think this has great potential.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Definitely priced a little higher, especially compared to the last one we were looking at.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: It is a little higher. I think that it's on the top of kind of the market value Range, I think that it's, you know, 630 to 650 or so, but they have that $30,000 they're willing to come down. And of course we can negotiate that more. It is more of a buyer's market now. So I do think there's room to negotiate more aggressively in a lot of these cases.
And I do think that this could generate, if, you know, well appointed, $120,000 or so in gross revenue. So let me show you one that does need some work.
This one. There's a lot of these cabins. I think it's a great opportunity still. But there's a lot of these older cabins that have not really been updated.
They could use this, could use some landscaping as well.
It's a small cabin. It's less than 500 square feet, but it's older. It is a short term rental currently. And in the last four years, every year it's generated between $27,047,000 in revenue.
But I think that if you were to clean this up a little bit, add some design elements, update it a little bit, it could really put it over the top. This is a really desirable short term rental neighborhood in Shenandoah, the town.
There's a hunting reserve that's available to guests. There's river access that's shared in the community.
It's just a very popular short term rental neighborhood. So I think that there's potential to really bring this up with some updates.
[00:16:44] Speaker A: I like the floors, it needs some things.
[00:16:49] Speaker B: But I think the location is key on this one.
It does have some nice outdoor space too.
Something you'll see is kind of unique in some of these houses that are further out is that the water source is cistern. So I know that can be different to folks who've never bought a house that before, but it's pretty common some of these areas. And there are companies that, you know, you get on a schedule with and they'll come bi weekly or whatever you need and refill those cisterns for your water source. So I wouldn't be too intimidated by that for any buyers who are not familiar with that.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Well, this, I mean, it looks very remote. You know, it's just like, what did you expect? You know, it might have some water situations.
But that's cheap.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:17:32] Speaker A: It's little.
Little.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that realistically it's more in the 200 to $225,000 range in terms of value.
So I think it's listed a little bit high.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: What an affordable area. This Is the cutest little thing. I like it.
All right.
Any more or are we good there?
[00:17:54] Speaker B: I can show you another one if you want to see one. Sure.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: I'm having fun. I like shopping.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Okay, great.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Four bed, 348,000.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So this one has just recently expired. It's been relisted for sale by owner. I'm using this expired listing because the photos are better, but it's been for sale for almost a year now. It was first listed last February.
So it's overpriced. Not significantly, but I think there's room to negotiate there.
This cabin is in that same popular neighborhood. I think it has the potential to do 8,000 plus in terms of gross revenue with the right furnishings and amenities and management. Of course, it's a log cabin. It's got that appeal.
Same kind of remote area, but close enough to the river that people who want to enjoy river activities, it's easy to do. So.
And this is a new construction, brand new house.
Yep.
[00:18:54] Speaker A: So it's a situation here where the seller or the. Well, the seller's a builder, so they probably have to get that much out of it, and that's why they're not moving.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: Probably.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: But at the same time, it's like, well, how long are you going to let this thing sit here?
[00:19:07] Speaker B: Right. There comes a point where the carry costs outweigh, maybe taking a price reduction. I would think this is.
[00:19:13] Speaker A: This is the world we're living in right now. Post Covid, you know, during COVID everybody thought they could make a billion dollars, so they started building, and then now the market's not where it was, and it's a great time to be a buyer.
[00:19:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. There's a lot of negotiating power right now.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: It's paying the pain in the rear end to do all this negotiating because you got five houses on the same street that I'm. I'm obviously exaggerating right now, but five houses on the same street, and you make this. You know, all of them are the exact same house.
Same. Same listed, same price. And then you make the same offer, you know, 10% under or something like that. And you get four of them to tell you to go to hell. And then you get one that says here, I'll give you $10 off. And then you gotta just keep getting. Getting in there and swinging. You know, you just. I mean, literally, you got to just keep swinging for the fences until you finally find the right seller is basically what I. How. That's how I'm doing it right now.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: Yeah. How long do you think it'll take to kind of correct in terms of seller mentality on that?
[00:20:13] Speaker A: I think the sellers are going to stay put and I think the buyers will come back around and so we will start to see a little movement in the sellers mindset when one of their neighbors actually sells their house. But right now the neighbor's not actually selling the house. So none of the sellers have any interest in selling anything for whatever reason and they're just waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. I think it's going to take a few buyers to come back in the market and then, and then the sellers will start to realize, okay, here's my chance, but I still do need to drop a little bit and then we'll, we'll start to have a normal market again. I think it'll be a while. I think, I think that's how it's going to happen. But I think it'll be, I think it'll be another year or so until we start to see some sort of like, you know, average active market.
That being said, that the recording of this podcast, the Fed meeting is today actually, and we're all signs are pointing to no lowering of the Fed today, which I think is good.
I think that today is actually going to be fairly beneficial to the real estate world because I think without the lowering of the rates today, we may now have some, some buyers that say, okay, I'm sick of waiting around.
I don't really have anything going in my favor over the next three to four months with no rate drop right now. So I have no reason to wait any, any longer. And I think you're going to see a couple of those folks coming around right now. Again, I'm just making all this up based on my own experiences with the market. But, well, now's a good time for.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: The buyers that make that choice because we are still lower in terms of inventory and demand as we're coming into spring. That's going to pick up. So now's a good time for buyers.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: 100 in this market I'm actively buying. As a matter of fact, I'm under contract right now. Had an inspection this morning and it was difficult. I've been looking for months and I've gone back and forth on one particular property three or four times and prior to that another property a dozen times and we almost landed on that one. And then somebody scooped in on us at the last second and basically bought it for the original offer price that I made on it like a year prior.
And then all of A sudden, out of nowhere, the exact house we were hoping for, literally exactly what we were looking for, went for sale. And the price was right. So that was weird. That was really weird.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: It happens for a reason.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: 100%. I got lucky there, and it was, like, meant to be. But at the same time, I'm like, why is it priced right? I just.
I didn't quite understand that.
Because literally, the exact same. Exact same house one street over is, you know, not priced right.
So it's just. It's just paying attention is. It's always like that. You got to pay attention and work hard to get a deal, you know? But right now, they. The good news is, right now, they're. They are out there.
[00:23:17] Speaker B: There's a lot of deals out there right now. Definitely.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: Yeah. You just got to put in the effort.
Well, what else do we need to know?
[00:23:27] Speaker B: What else do you want to know about the senator?
[00:23:30] Speaker A: How do we find you? What's your email?
[00:23:33] Speaker B: So My email is mariantheshorttermshop.com My phone number is 703-828-5158. You can text, call, email, anything that works for you if you're interested in talking with me.
[00:23:46] Speaker A: I love it. Well, you were wonderful. I look forward to doing it again. Let's do it again in no more than six months. What do you say?
[00:23:53] Speaker B: Definitely. Sounds great.
[00:23:55] Speaker A: Wonderful. Thank you so much.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: Okay. Thanks, Luke.
