First Thing.....I currently do not have any rental cabins.....Yet.

This page (and soon to be website) is my on line journal of my quest to find, build or buy a cabin(s) to rent out to groups coming to Lake Texoma.

I'm going to break this journal into 3 parts....Why, When and How.

Why........

  Most of these groups will be my fishing clients that have a trip chartered with me but I expect to also offer this rental to non-guide customers if the day is available. One reason I'm wanting multiple properties.

I've figured that almost 99% of my customers are from out of town and almost 70% of them book either a local motel, house or cabin when they come to Lake Texoma to fish with me.

I have no idea how many non-customers come to the lake and are in want of a nice place to stay, other than a regular motel, that just can't find something nice, close by.

There are cabins and houses for rent and I do send my groups to those few places. Over the years I've seen that there is a need, that there is a demand for this and I've decided to get into that business also.  Why not take complete control over my customer's trips and insure the place they stay, is also on the same level of quality as their fishing trip? Not to mention, why not pay me instead of some stranger?  If I can offer a nicer place to stay than a motel, at close to the same price or cheaper....I'm sure people would want that option. Now you know the reason why.....let's start on

When.....

From now on, I'm going to say "we" instead of "I"    We, would be my wife and I. My wife Brenda will be the person in charge of bookings, cleaning, legal stuff and the person you deal with when you book one of these rental properties.  This is really her baby and of course final say on decorating, names, location, etc..... will obviously be her's.  Hey, we've been married over 20 years. I know by now how things work. lol.

We are at the time in our lives, where day to day dealings with rental property is actually possible. The kids are grown enough that mom can tend to outside the home stuff more. Also, I've been guiding long enough to be absolutely sure that 1. There is a market for this and 2. I alone, can fill the properties enough to at least pay for their construction and day to day operation. Now is time to find property around the lake. Home foreclosures and property values are at all time lows and we were pretty sure that there were some deals out there. (good luck with that) more on that later. So that's the when.....

How....

This is the final part and the longest. I'm going to post our progress from start to finish on what we have to do to get all this to completion. Our goal is to have a cabin ready to rent by this time next year.....2011  We do not have a big bank account and own zero credit cards so this will be financed by the bank and payed off using monies made from the renting the property. 

Our initial plan was to get right into it and not lose a minute waiting on building something. Our plan was to find an existing property with a home or cabin of some sort already on it and start using it at once. Maybe  some cleaning and updating but try get people in it asap.  To keep our rental fees as low as a motel, obviously we couldn't't buy a big house or something too expensive but we wanted something clean and workable. 

Location, location, location.  One of the musts is that the property be located within a reasonable distance to my boat slip. Of course I want property as close to the lake as possible but again, that will cost. I found one quarter acre lot that is actually on the water.....$150,000.....and that is for a non-improved lot on a steep hill leading down to the lake. The only thing going for it was it's view.   Sorry, can't afford that, unless you want to pay $600.00 a night.  I didn't think so.  Brenda is the one that would clean the place between rentals and it needed to be close enough to home for her to do that. It doesn't have to be right on the water, but no further than 15 minutes from the lake and no longer than 30 minutes from our house....  Driving around the lake, we actually found tons of stuff. Lots and lots of houses and many many more mobile homes and manufactured homes. In all stages of wear. From never been lived in ( I really liked that one) to ones that were 30 years old and looked every minute of it.  Most were not really in good enough shape to use without some serious updating and the ones that were, were asking just too much. (what happened to the recession?) The good ones seemed to be on large amounts of land with big metal buildings and lots of extras that I would never use but the sellers needed money for.  Then there were the bad ones. Wow,  mobile homes so close together. 10 feet apart, no view, old and they still wanted $80,000. Really?      We spent days driving around on our own. I've been down just about every back road on this side of the lake. With all the rains, I'm spending $10.00 bucks a day just at the car wash getting the mud off the truck.  That's another thing, I'm not a big fan of dirt roads for the rental property. Might have to go that route, but it is a negative to me and I don't want my customers to mess with it if at all possible. We only stay in cabins now when we go on vacation and I can't remember one that we've stayed in that wasn't on a dirt road but I still don't like it.  We even had a Realtor go with us yesterday, showing some good stuff that would have worked. One place was ready to go and another would have been with about a week's worth of hard elbow grease, both mobile homes. Not the best views from their decks  but still much better than a motel room's parking lot view. So we went to the bank. :(

I'll keep this part short and sweet....bank won't loan money on Mobil homes or manufactured homes.  Oh they will if you own the land and the land is 60% of the total value blah blah blah. My loan officer is all about buying a home or building something. He is excited about my venture and is in agreement that it will pay for it'self but he doesn't want me involved in a Mobil home. Also, he is on the water board of the area where the homes were located and he said that they have sewer issues and that the homes in that area had been there so long that the lagoons were full and there was serious sewer problems in that area. Not only did I not want to buy a home there, I didn't want to buy land in that area either. At any price. So the search continues. I've given up on finding a home. I'm now looking for land only and will build something on it. Land first...

1-30-10 Update:    I've been on Google Earth for days, looking for roads around the lake that I haven't been down yet. I've actually found some good houses that I'd like to live in myself, for sale. Problem is they are big nicer houses and just too much to rent. Our goal now is to find some land and there really isn't that much out there in the area that I've confined my search to. At least land that was in a decent neighborhood or didn't have a swollen creek running through it or wasn't down a road so muddy that I didn't need 4 wheel dr. to get out. I've spent enough now on car washes, that I could have bought one buy now.

2-4-10 Update:  I just can't find land that fits my 4 basic needs.  distance to lake, good neighborhood, trees and the deal breaker need.....right price. I'm working on a name for the place. Thinking about a website name. Need to wait and match it up with the location.

2-6-10 Update:  Maybe some good news. We expanded our distance from home requirement some and ventured down some roads that before were considered "too far away"  before.  We were just out driving around and saw a for sale sign pointing down a back road. Paved road, hmmmm good.   We drive and see a for sale sign along side the road. We had to turn off the paved road onto a dirt road to access the land but it was on top of a hill and a nice dirt road. No mud and we only had to leave the paved road, maybe 100ft to get there. This spot looks pretty good. A lot of trees, on a hill so no water drainage worries and really close to my marina. I think it was around 5 miles to my boat slip and 6 minutes away. Its a 35 minute drive from home but Brenda said doable. I call the number on the for sale sign and the lady said if it was the lots she thought it was, they were 1 acre lots and she wanted $9,500 each for them. She said she would get the paper work and fax it to me. I hang up. The lots had good tree coverage and in the distance you could see the lake but I know that once the trees have leaves on them, that view would disappear. I wanted at least one acre of land and at that price, I would probably get two. Just so no one would ever build next to me and if I wanted to expand, and build multiple cabins, spaced far apart, I could.

Too good to be true...We get back into town and get the fax. She had made a mistake and forgot what the property looked like or something. Anyway, the actual lot sizes were about 1/2 acre and they were $12,500 each. That comes to $25,000 an acre not the $9,500 an acre we were told. She did say she would sell one half acre lot for the $9,500 but the other ones were $12,500.  Hmmm. I wanted to buy more land than this will allow me to.   If I've learned anything in my 44 years about buying stuff....it is don't rush.  Don't know, gonna have to think about it. Do some praying.