Short term rentals for newbies

[Jimmy Woodard]

I’m sure this is the 10,006th novice post on here, so I thank you in advance for your help. My friend and I are starting our journey to find great properties that we can turn into short-term rentals. We believe this is a great time to buy at a discount and will wait patiently for the travel market to recover next year. Here are some questions that come to mind:

1. Should we go with hard money lenders or stick with traditional lenders?

2. Are there benefits to treating the vacation home as an investment home vs. a second home?

3. Should the strategy be discounted properties or does it not matter as long as the ROI is there?

4. What calculations do you use to figure out ROI? How much do you reserve for repairs and cap ex reserves? What's your minimum cash on cash return or cap rate before you'll invest?

5. Are there cities that seem better suited to find real estate for short term rentals?

6. What tools do you use to manage your properties?

7. Anything else I’m missing?

Thank you for any and all advice!