Airbnb Rental Arbitrage

[Charles Schmidt]

Anyone had any success with this business model? Seems like an interesting way to get involved in real estate/rentals with very low upfront investment. Long term buy and hold rental property investing is still my main goal/interest in the long run, but I think this idea has some potential to build up some cash flow in the short term to help me save for down payments for future investments. 

For those who don't know, the basic idea is to rent a property with a long term lease (1 year or more), then manage it as a short term rental on Airbnb/VRBO/any similar platform. From my limited research, I've seen a solid amount of success stories where people are cash flowing upwards of $1,000 a month on a property using this strategy. The biggest challenge I've heard of is getting a landlord to agree to this, but it sounds like with the right pitch and maybe an offer for some profit sharing, most landlords can be convinced to make this happen. 

Hoping to get some opinions on whether this idea has any significant holes/risks I'm not aware of, and see if anyone has direct experience with this and could share some wisdom!