MTR market validation, supply & competition analysis

Sep 20 • General

I’m looking at adding homes to my portfolio, but in the Tulsa Oklahoma market and have been working through my MTR Market Selection Scorecard (Thank you ChatGPT).

Right now I’m at the market validation, supply & competition stage.

I’m not looking at any homes to yet. It's too early.

I already know the type of home I want, newer 4bd, 2000-2200sq ft, good neighborhood, family friendly layout, nice kitchen and living space, etc. But before I start looking at houses, I want to answer the BIG question:

Is this actually a good market for my MTR strategy?

I think sometimes we do it backwards.

We find a house we like and then ask, “Would this make a good MTR?”

I rather validate the market (myself) first, then the specific area, understand the competition and demand, price and only then start looking for the right house.

First is to look at Furnished Finder and Zillow. I found 15 furnished 4bd listings. At first I didn’t like seeing that much competition. I will do the same with all properties on Airbnb as well.

But we need to look at each individual property.

I went through the listings individually, price, photos, age and condition of the home, neighborhood, location, layout, dining/living space, pet policy, rental history, Airbnb activity, reviews and overall quality and ran everything through ChatGPT to organize and analyze it.

Just give it the Furnished Finder links, provide pictures and start discussing the property with your AI,

One thing Chat did that i liked, it analyzed calendar updates. I never did that.

We noticed several properties with "dormant" calendars, not updated in FF for 8-9 months. We (as in ChatGPT,) crossed reference the properties in Airbnb and found they are very active in STR (55 and 376 reviews) so it's not a true direct competitor of MTR. Cool stuff.

The results were pretty interesting.

15 listings did NOT mean 15 true competitors.

Once we broke them down, we found only 1 that I would consider a true direct competitor to the type of newer 4 bd home MTR I want to own and operate.

About 5 others were partial comps that gave us good information, but weren't really the same product.

The rest were older, basic homes, Airbnb style properties, rural homes, oversized luxury properties or properties targeting a completely different customer.

Another thing location and the neighboring homes matter. A house can have a beautiful remodeled interior, but when you look at the aerial view and surrounding properties, it may not be the product you want for a family staying 3 or 6 months.

So my advice is:

Don’t just count the competition. UNDERSTAND the competition.

And don't start by asking “Is this house a good MTR?”

Start with “Is this a good market for my MTR strategy?”

If the market passes, then....... I'll start looking for the house.

There are 3 areas I'm interested in and will do this deep dive to understand all 3 and determined which one checks all the boxes.

Sharing the spreadsheet because I thought the process might be useful to others analyzing a new MTR market. Still more work to do before I decide whether I'm buying anything.

5 comments

MTR market validation, supply & competition analysis