Every question we get, answered honestly

My BnB Accelerator, LLC is a done-for-you short-term rental acquisition firm based in Billings, Montana and run by Nicholas Korom. We help high-income earners find, negotiate, buy, and launch cash-flowing Airbnb investment properties across eight states.

We are not a course, a coaching program, or a mastermind. We are an acquisition team that does approximately 95% of the work of buying a short-term rental on your behalf. That includes reviewing more than 1,000 listings a week, underwriting the survivors against real booking data, writing and negotiating offers, coordinating inspection, appraisal, lender and title, and pairing you with vetted local designers, furnishing crews, and property managers.

We have closed more than 500 homes for over 260 clients across five-plus years, and roughly 80% of our clients come back to buy again. See the full five-stage process or read documented client results.

Pricing depends on the scope of the engagement, the market, and the price point of the property you are buying, so we quote it on the first call rather than publishing a single number that would be wrong for most people.

What we can tell you is how to think about it. Our clients typically negotiate $25,000 to $85,000 off asking price on a single acquisition, plus additional value in seller-paid closing costs, repair credits, furniture packages, and rate buydowns. For most buyers, the negotiation savings alone meaningfully offset the cost of the engagement before the tax strategy is even considered.

We are transparent about fees before you commit anything, there are no surprise charges later in the process, and we never take custody of your funds, you wire to title, never to us. Apply and we will give you real numbers on the first call.

My BnB Accelerator, LLC is a real registered company operating out of 3635 Montana Ave, Billings, MT 59101, founded and run by Nicholas Korom. We hold a 4.5 out of 5 rating on Trustpilot across 27 reviews. We have closed over 500 homes for more than 260 clients over five-plus years.

The number we point people to first is the 80% repeat buyer rate, because that is the metric that is hardest to fake. Clients like Peter E., an Associate Partner at IBM, have purchased six properties with us across four years. Nobody buys a sixth property from a firm that got the first one wrong.

That said, do your own diligence. Read the Trustpilot reviews including the critical ones, ask us for client references on your first call, and ask hard questions about any specific deal we present. A firm that flinches at scrutiny is telling you something. See what clients say and read our own honest review breakdown.

The Reverse Offset Method™ is our name for inverting the normal order of earning, taxation, and investing. Normally you earn income, pay tax on it, and invest whatever survives. The tax is a fixed cost that produces nothing.

The Reverse Offset Method™ deploys capital into a short-term rental first, uses a cost segregation study to accelerate depreciation into the first year, and applies the resulting paper loss against income you have already earned. Because short-term rentals with an average guest stay of seven days or less fall outside the passive activity rules when you materially participate, that loss can offset ordinary W-2 or business income rather than being suspended.

The practical effect is that dollars which were headed to the Treasury instead help fund an appreciating, cash-producing asset. It only works if all three legs hold: the seven-day test, material participation, and a properly executed cost segregation study.

About 45 days from strategy call to a live listing is the target, and it is achievable because the work runs in parallel rather than in sequence.

Roughly, the first one to two weeks cover the strategy call, market selection, and pre-approval. Weeks two and three are deal presentation, offer, and negotiation. Weeks three through six cover inspection, appraisal, lender conditions, and closing. Design, furnishing, photography, and management pairing begin before closing rather than after, so the listing can go live within days of the keys transferring.

Timelines move. A slow lender, an inspection that turns up a real problem, or a seller who drags their feet can add weeks. Cash purchases close faster. What we control is that nothing waits on us, the reason most owner-managed acquisitions take four to six months is that every task waits for someone with a day job to get to it. See the stage-by-stage breakdown.

No. A meaningful share of our clients have never owned an investment property of any kind, and the model is built specifically for that person.

The expertise that matters in short-term rental investing is concentrated in three places: knowing which markets and submarkets actually work, being able to underwrite a property against real booking data instead of a listing agent's projection, and knowing which local operators can be trusted to run the asset. Those are exactly the three things we supply.

What you do need is a clear financial picture, a willingness to make decisions on real numbers rather than on how a property makes you feel, and realistic expectations about what a short-term rental is. It is a small hospitality business attached to a piece of real estate. It is not a savings account, and it will have bad months. Read our guide for first-time buyers.

There is no hard cutoff, but the model is built for households earning roughly $500,000 or more per year, and the reason is arithmetic rather than exclusivity.

The tax component of the strategy delivers value in proportion to your marginal rate. If you are in the top federal bracket plus a state income tax, a $385,000 accelerated deduction is worth well over $150,000 to you. At a $150,000 household income, the same deduction is worth far less and can easily exceed the income you are trying to offset, leaving you carrying losses forward.

The property itself still has to work as an investment, and it does at lower incomes too. But if the tax offset is the primary reason you are interested, and your income is well below that range, we will tell you plainly on the first call that you are better served by a different approach. See how the tax math scales.

My BnB Accelerator, LLC is headquartered at 3635 Montana Ave, Billings, MT 59101. The company is founded and run by Nicholas Korom, who goes by Nick.

Our acquisition activity is deliberately not tied to our headquarters. We buy in Florida, Tennessee, Arizona, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Colorado, and Missouri, because those are the markets where short-term rental economics currently work. Our team operates remotely across those markets with local boots on the ground for showings, inspections, and vendor management.

Clients come from all over the country, and the entire acquisition process is designed to run without you ever needing to be physically present, which is essential when you are buying a cabin in the Smokies from a desk in Chicago. See all eight markets.

Plan on 20% to 25% down on the purchase price, plus closing costs, plus furnishing, plus operating reserves.

On a $600,000 property in a market like Fort Walton Beach or Broken Bow, that is roughly $120,000 to $150,000 down, $12,000 to $20,000 in closing costs, $45,000 to $80,000 to furnish it properly, and we strongly recommend six months of full carrying costs in reserve. Realistically, that is $200,000 to $270,000 of liquid capital for an entry-level deal. A $1.1 million Smokies cabin runs meaningfully higher.

The two line items people consistently underestimate are furnishing and reserves. Under-furnishing a short-term rental is the most reliable way to destroy its returns, because photographs and amenities drive nightly rate, and rate drives everything. Skipping reserves means one bad quarter forces a distressed decision. We model all of it before you commit. Compare entry points across markets.

Across our active markets we underwrite to a range of roughly 11% to 21% cash-on-cash return in a stabilized year, with the higher end concentrated in lower-basis markets like Broken Bow, Branson, and the Smokies, and the lower end in premium markets like Scottsdale, Austin, and Denver where you are paying for asset quality and appreciation potential.

Those are underwriting targets, not promises. Actual performance depends on your purchase price, financing terms, how well the property is furnished, how competently it is managed, and what the market does. Year one is usually the weakest because the listing has no review history and no ranking. Properties typically stabilize in year two.

Anyone quoting you a guaranteed return on a short-term rental is either misinformed or selling you something. What we commit to is that we will not present a deal that does not clear our threshold after every real cost is accounted for. See per-market ROI ranges.

Rental real estate is normally a passive activity under Internal Revenue Code Section 469, which means losses from it can only offset passive income, not your salary. Short-term rentals can escape that classification.

Treasury Regulation 1.469-1T(e)(3)(ii)(A) provides that an activity is not a rental activity when the average period of customer use is seven days or less. If your property meets that test and you materially participate under one of the IRS tests, the loss is generally non-passive and can offset ordinary income including W-2 wages.

Separately, a cost segregation study reclassifies building components into 5, 7, and 15-year property, much of which is eligible for bonus depreciation, converting a large share of the purchase price into a first-year deduction. Combine the two and a single property can generate a six-figure deduction against income you already earned.

All three legs have to hold, and this is not tax advice. Read the full mechanics or talk to our partner firm, AE Tax Advisors.

A cost segregation study is an engineering-based analysis that takes a building apart on paper for depreciation purposes. By default, the entire structure depreciates over 27.5 years for residential rental or 39 years for nonresidential property, which is where most short-term rentals with a seven-day average stay land.

A study identifies components that legitimately belong in shorter recovery classes: appliances, carpeting, cabinetry, decorative lighting, and specialty electrical or plumbing serving equipment go to 5 and 7-year property, while driveways, fencing, landscaping, decks, and pools go to 15-year land improvements. Shorter-life property is generally eligible for bonus depreciation, so a substantial portion becomes an immediate deduction.

On a well-suited short-term rental, studies commonly reclassify 25% to 35% of purchase price. Important caveat: this is a timing benefit, not free money. It reduces your basis and can create depreciation recapture on sale, so model the exit first. Learn more from AE Tax Advisors or read our cost segregation guide.

The seven-day rule comes from Treasury Regulation 1.469-1T(e)(3)(ii)(A), which excludes an activity from the definition of a rental activity when the average period of customer use is seven days or less.

This matters because rental activities are automatically passive under Section 469, and passive losses cannot offset W-2 or business income. If your short-term rental clears the seven-day test, that automatic passive classification never attaches, and if you also materially participate, the loss is generally non-passive.

The critical detail is that it is an average, not a maximum. You take total rented days and divide by total number of bookings across the tax year. One long booking will not necessarily break it, but a pattern of extended stays will. This is why we flag snowbird-heavy submarkets during underwriting, since thirty-day-plus winter stays help occupancy and hurt your average. Read the full explanation.

Material participation is the IRS standard for whether you are genuinely involved in an activity rather than a passive investor in it. There are seven tests and you only need to satisfy one.

Three matter most for short-term rental owners: the 500-hour test, where you participate more than 500 hours in the year; the substantially-all test, where your participation constitutes substantially all participation by any individual; and the 100-hour test, where you participate more than 100 hours and no other individual participates more than you.

Qualifying hours include guest communication, pricing and calendar management, vendor coordination, purchasing, bookkeeping, marketing, and physical maintenance. Documentation is everything, keep a contemporaneous log with dates, hours, and specific descriptions, supported by calendars, emails, vendor texts, receipts, and travel records. A spreadsheet assembled the week before an audit with round numbers is exactly what examiners are trained to catch.

Note that hiring a full-service property manager can make the 100-hour test harder to satisfy. See how we handle that during acquisition.

In specific circumstances, yes, and that is the entire reason high earners pursue this strategy. Two conditions have to be met.

First, the average period of customer use for your property must be seven days or less, which takes it outside the definition of a rental activity for passive loss purposes under Treasury Regulation 1.469-1T. Second, you must materially participate in the activity under one of the seven IRS tests. When both hold, losses from the property are generally treated as non-passive and can offset ordinary income including W-2 wages, rather than being suspended and carried forward as passive losses would be.

This is what people mean by the short-term rental loophole. It is a legitimate, long-standing provision of the regulations, not a gray area. The risk is not legality, it is execution: failing the average-stay test, failing to document participation, or running a study that will not survive scrutiny. Consult a qualified CPA, ours is AE Tax Advisors.

It scales with your marginal rate and the size of the property. A representative example: a married couple earning $650,000 buys a $1.1 million short-term rental. Depreciable basis after land allocation is roughly $935,000. A cost segregation study reclassifies about $385,000 into accelerated categories eligible for bonus depreciation. At a combined federal and state marginal rate in the top brackets, that deduction can translate to $150,000 or more in reduced tax for the year.

On a $600,000 property the reclassified amount is proportionally smaller, and the savings scale down with it. The number also depends on the bonus depreciation percentage in effect the year you place the property in service, which has moved repeatedly under recent legislation.

Remember this is a timing benefit that reduces basis and can create recapture on sale. These figures are illustrative, not a promise, and not tax advice. See the full worked example.

The large majority of our clients finance. Conventional investment property loans typically require 20% to 25% down for a short-term rental, and rates run somewhat above owner-occupied pricing.

DSCR loans, which qualify the property on its own projected income rather than your personal debt-to-income ratio, are also common in this space and are particularly useful for buyers who already carry several mortgages. Some clients pay cash and refinance later to free up capital for the next acquisition.

We coordinate with your lender throughout the transaction but we do not originate loans, and we do not take a cut of your financing. If you do not have a lender who understands short-term rental underwriting, we can point you toward ones who do. Financing meaningfully improves cash-on-cash return when the deal is bought right, and meaningfully amplifies the damage when it is not.

No, and almost none of our clients do. That said, the management decision is also a tax decision, and the two need to be made together.

A full-service property manager handles guest communication, pricing, cleaning coordination, and maintenance for roughly 15% to 25% of gross revenue. It is genuinely hands-off. The tradeoff is that their hours count against you when you are trying to satisfy the 100-hour material participation test, which can jeopardize the tax position that motivated the purchase.

A co-host arrangement sits in between: the co-host handles on-the-ground logistics while you retain pricing, calendar, and a share of guest communication. That structure often preserves material participation while keeping the time commitment to a few hours a week. We pair you with vetted operators in each market and we flag the tax implications before you sign anything.

A property manager takes over operations end to end. They handle listing management, dynamic pricing, guest communication, cleaner scheduling, restocking, maintenance dispatch, and often the accounting, typically for 15% to 25% of gross revenue. Some markets run higher.

A co-host is a lighter arrangement. The co-host handles the physical and local side of the business, coordinating cleaners, handling turnovers, responding to on-site issues, and managing vendors, while the owner keeps pricing strategy, calendar control, and guest messaging. Co-host fees typically run lower than full management, often 10% to 15%.

Beyond cost, the structural difference matters for tax purposes, because retaining more of the operational work makes it far easier to satisfy the material participation tests that make short-term rental losses non-passive. We help clients pick the right structure for both their schedule and their return.

Six criteria, and a market has to clear all of them.

Regulatory stability comes first: short-term rental must be legal, permitted, and politically durable, because a city council one vote away from a ban is a market where your asset can lose half its value overnight. State-level preemption, as Arizona has, is a significant plus. Proven multi-season demand across years of booking history, not one hot summer, because a market that only works twelve weeks a year cannot carry twelve months of debt service. Revenue-to-price ratio, which is what removes markets from the list when prices outrun revenue.

Drive-to accessibility from a major metro, since drive-to markets hold up far better when air travel gets expensive. Operator depth, meaning multiple competent managers, cleaners, and maintenance vendors already working there. And insurance availability at a rational price, rising premiums have quietly killed the economics in several otherwise attractive coastal markets. See the eight that currently qualify.

First, the honest part: this is real estate and real estate carries risk, including loss of principal. Nobody can guarantee performance, and any firm that does is lying to you.

What we can do is stack the odds. We underwrite conservatively against actual comparable booking data rather than listing agent projections, we require reserves so a soft quarter does not force a distressed decision, and we buy in drive-to markets with proven multi-season demand precisely because they degrade more gracefully.

When a property underperforms, the cause is usually diagnosable and fixable: the listing is priced wrong, the photography is weak, the amenity package does not match what that market's guests book, or the manager is not performing. We help clients work through that diagnosis. Underperformance is far more often an operational problem than a fundamental one, but occasionally the answer is to sell, and we will tell you that too.

You almost certainly should, and nearly all of our clients do. The best short-term rental markets in the country are unlikely to be where you happen to live, and buying near home for convenience is one of the most expensive habits in this business.

Our entire model is built for remote acquisition. We handle showings, inspections, vendor walkthroughs, and closing coordination locally so that you never need to be physically present. Most of our clients do not see their property in person until after it is live, and some never do.

Two practical considerations: you will owe income tax in the state where the property sits if that state has an income tax, which is part of why Florida, Tennessee, and Texas are attractive. And remote ownership makes your choice of local operator far more important, vetting that operator is a core part of what we do. Browse the markets.

Because nothing pencils. That is the short, direct answer and we give it constantly.

California properties cost two to three times what comparable inventory costs in our active markets while generating nowhere near two to three times the revenue, which destroys the revenue-to-price ratio that cash flow depends on. Layer on the highest state income tax in the country, which directly attacks the tax-offset half of the strategy. Add property insurance that has become expensive, difficult, or in wildfire-exposed areas simply unobtainable as carriers withdraw from the state. Then add a patchwork of aggressive and frequently changing municipal short-term rental restrictions across coastal cities.

Any one of those is survivable. Together they mean we cannot underwrite a California deal that meets our threshold. We would rather say that plainly than take your money for a deal we do not believe in. If California is where you want to own, we are not the right firm. Read the full breakdown.

Yes, and the work starts before closing rather than after, which is the single biggest reason our clients launch in weeks instead of months.

We pair you with vetted local vendors who already operate in your specific market: interior designers who know what actually books in the Smokies versus Scottsdale, furnishing and installation crews who can turn an empty house around in days, professional short-term rental photographers, and property managers or co-hosts whose performance we have verified on other clients' properties.

These are working relationships, not referrals we collect a kickback on, and vendors who underperform come off the list. The goal is a listing that is furnished, photographed, priced, and live on Airbnb and VRBO within days of the keys transferring. Ashley and Billy booked 80 nights within 21 days of launch using exactly this process.

Regulatory risk is the single largest structural threat in this asset class and we treat it that way. It is the first filter in market selection, not an afterthought.

We avoid markets where short-term rental permission is fragile, we favor jurisdictions with state-level preemption like Arizona, and in heavily regulated markets like Nashville and Austin we only pursue properties where the permitting path is clear and, where applicable, transferable before we write an offer. We also read HOA covenants in full, because a rental cap buried on page 40 has ended more deals than city ordinances have.

None of that eliminates the risk. Rules can change after you buy. Two mitigations matter: buy properties that would still function as long-term rentals or second homes if short-term rental became impossible, and diversify across markets rather than concentrating a portfolio in one jurisdiction.

Doing it yourself is entirely possible and some people should. You keep the fee, you learn the market deeply, and you control every decision.

The costs are time and risk. Realistically you are looking at 150 to 300 hours across market research, deal analysis, remote showings, offers, negotiation, and vendor sourcing, spread over four to six months because every task waits for someone with a full-time job. During that time you are competing against buyers who look at a thousand listings a week.

The risk is concentrated in things you cannot see until it is too late: an HOA rental cap buried in the covenants, a municipality about to restrict permits, a revenue projection built on the three best months of the year. One bad purchase costs more than the fee on ten good ones.

If your time is worth $200 an hour or more, the arithmetic usually favors delegating. If you genuinely enjoy the process and have time, do it yourself. See the full time and cost comparison.

They solve different problems and it is worth being precise about the difference.

BNB Mastery Program, associated with James Svetec, is primarily an education and coaching business focused on short-term rental operations, and historically much of its content has centered on rental arbitrage and management rather than ownership. You learn a system and then execute it yourself, with coaching support along the way.

BNB Accelerator is not education. We do not sell a curriculum, and there is no course to complete. We are an acquisition team that sources, underwrites, negotiates, and closes properties on your behalf, then pairs you with design and management.

The client profile differs accordingly. Education programs fit people with more time than capital who want to build the skill. We fit high earners with capital and no time who want the asset without acquiring the skill set. Neither is better in the abstract. See the side-by-side comparison table.

Most of what markets itself as short-term rental help falls into three categories.

Courses and coaching programs sell you knowledge and you do the work, which is capital-light, time-heavy, and appropriate if you want the skill. Turnkey providers sell you a finished property from their own inventory, which is fast but creates a structural conflict, because they profit from the sale price rather than from getting you the best price. Syndications and funds give you passive exposure to someone else's portfolio, but you do not own the asset, which means you generally do not get the short-term rental tax treatment that motivates most of our clients.

We sit in a fourth category: a buyer's agent and acquisition team working on your side of the table, on properties you own directly. Ask any provider one question: do you make more money when I pay more for the property? Our answer is no. See the comparison table.

Four things.

We are on your side of the table. We do not own inventory and we do not profit from a higher purchase price, which means our incentive is to negotiate hard, clients save $25,000 to $85,000 on a typical deal.

Volume creates selectivity. Reviewing more than 1,000 listings a week across eight states means we can kill 98% of them, and the deals you see are the survivors of a filter you could not practically run yourself.

The tax strategy is integrated rather than bolted on afterward. We flag management structures that would jeopardize material participation before you sign, and we introduce you to AE Tax Advisors during acquisition, not in April.

The 80% repeat buyer rate. Clients like Peter E. have bought six properties with us. That number is the hardest thing in this industry to manufacture. See the results.

None of those. There is no curriculum, no modules, no community forum, and no franchise territory. We are a short-term rental acquisition firm. Our deliverable is a closed property that cash flows, furnished, live, and taking bookings, not a body of knowledge.

The distinction matters practically, because it changes what you should evaluate. With a course, you are buying information and the question is whether the information is good and whether you will act on it. With us, you are buying execution, and the questions to ask are whether we actually close deals, at what prices, in which markets, and whether previous clients came back.

Those are answerable questions, so ask them. Ask for references, ask about specific closings, and ask what our clients' properties are producing. We also publish our case studies and market data openly for exactly that reason.

Most start with one, and roughly 80% come back for another. That repeat rate is the number we watch most closely, because it is the only honest scoreboard in this business.

The typical pattern is a first acquisition to prove the model works in your own hands, then a second purchase within twelve to eighteen months once the first property has stabilized and you have seen a full seasonal cycle. From there, portfolio building tends to accelerate because the process is already familiar and financing relationships are established.

Peter E., an Associate Partner at IBM, closed three properties with us across 2023 and 2024 and then three more across 2025 and 2026. There is no requirement or expectation to buy more than one. Plenty of clients buy a single property, get the tax outcome and the cash flow they wanted, and stop there. That is a completely reasonable outcome. Read how portfolios get built.

Submit an application through our apply page. It takes a few minutes and asks about your income range, available capital, timeline, market interest, and what you are trying to accomplish.

We review every application individually rather than routing everyone into an automated funnel. If your situation looks like a fit, we schedule a strategy call to go through your numbers, your tax picture, and which markets make sense for your budget and goals. If it is not a fit, we tell you on that call rather than selling you something that will not work.

There is no obligation at any point in that process and we work with a limited number of clients at a time so that every acquisition gets real attention. If tax strategy is a major driver for you, it is worth booking a parallel conversation with AE Tax Advisors early.