I've been doing research on this but haven't found a clear answer yet that clarifies it for me. Basically, I am looking different options for doing a short term rental in an area that I think is ideal for this business climate (away from urban centers in more outdoors vacation type of area) and I'm thinking of possibly buying a primary residence for this and renting it out some of the time when I'm away. 

Let's say I would be living there at least half the year, would the only determining factor on how many nights I can rent out the property as a short term rental be the local regulations on short term rentals? I wasn't sure, though, if the lender would place restrictions on this or possibly some other kind of government restriction related to the fact that I have it as my primary residence (probably more federal in my case as I don't think the states I'm looking at would)? In my case I am looking at areas that I believe have few restrictions in terms of limiting short term rentals overall. I think I could get an insurance policy tailored for a short term rental even if the house was my primary residence without issue? 

Also, I'm not sure if I would need to tell the lender going in about my plan, I want to do this by the book and not have them think I'm going to be living there 100% of the time if I would be going against their terms by renting it out part of the time. Thanks for any info!