Are vacation rentals a good first investment?

[Robert Farris]

Hello. My name is Rob Farris, I'm from the Stockton, CA area. I am super new to the real estate world, but am ready to learn and grow.

Initially, I was interested in getting in to the buy and hold strategy to create a large enough cash flow over 15 years to be able to retire and an younger age. I still love that idea, but at a local real estate investors get together, we had a guest speaker talk about vacation rentals-specifically through Air BnB. We were basically shown a site that lets you enter in the data from the prospective property, which it will then tell you the average price per night per bed/bath and the average occupancy rate through the year. It also has areas to enter in expenses. 

After having the idea in my head I went and looked at a few houses around my area and then at popular tourism areas within 4 hours of where I live. The numbers were undeniably impressive. Like I mentioned earlier, I am very new to this world, but even after entering in what I would consider to be pessimistic numbers, the properties I analyzed still cash flowed significantly more than traditional renting would.

Now here comes my two dilemmas. The first being that I am currently a full-time student, so financing is a little tricky for me. I am a veteran so I always planned on using the VA loan offered to do a "house hacking" situation, but I honestly don't know that they would help for a commercial investment like this. I have enough saved to put about 15% down on a house and still be able to do a light rehab, but I'm not sure that would be the best way to go with my money. The second dilemma is that I am simply unsure that these deals are as good as they seem to be. I'm not sure if it's common in new investors to have this much uncertainty. If there are any suggestions on how to improve property analysis, I would sincerely appreciate them. Also, if you have any advice for me and my introduction to becoming a real estate investing career even beyond the vacation rental stuff, I would LOVE to hear it. Thank you for you time and have a wonderful day!