Why 13 bedrooms is better than three

A 13-bedroom Tampa house may scream “spring break,” but it’s actually a respectable cash-flowing rental strategy. Alex Blackwood at Mogul explains.

The pros: “Tampa is one of my favorite markets because the demand just keeps showing up,” Blackwood says. With nearly 400,000 new residents expected by 2030, “there’s also a shortage of affordable, flexible housing for people who staff the city. This is why we lean into co-living and rent by the room, which serves demand and produces more income.” In downtown Tampa, Blackwood’s firm recently bought The Brady: a 13-bedroom, four-bath house for $535,000. The property rakes in $84,000 a year in rent, amounting to a 7.7% first-year cash yield.

The cons: “Tampa is one of the most institutionally owned rental markets in the country, so on a plain-vanilla house you’ll bid against very large, very patient buyers,” Blackwood says. Then there’s the weather. “Hurricanes are a fact of life here, and that feeds into insurance, financing, and how much you keep in reserves,” he says. In storm-surge zones, expect to pay $4,000 to $5,800 a year to protect your property.

His advice: “Run your insurance and tax numbers fresh; don’t use last year’s: In Florida, those two lines make or break a deal,” he says. To find bargains, explore outside the core, which is how he found The Zephyr in Zephyrhills: an 11-bedroom, 3-bath house for $462,500, which brings in $75,000 a year, an 8.5% first-year yield. “Suburbs like Zephyrhills are earlier in the cycle and often cash flow better,” he says. “The whole town has only 34 co-living rooms on Padsplit, and they’re all occupied. That’s exactly the supply-and-demand setup we look for.”

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