First Time STR Help!

[Chris Bluem]

Hi all and thanks in advance for any advice or help

I am currently in the South Florida market. I have a property in a (pre-Covid) great STR area in Fort Lauderdale/Broward County. The property is a duplex but is acts more like 2 townhouses. Each two stories, 2 bed, 3 bath, private entrance, large patio / outdoor space and is just finishing up getting fully renovated. I have a few issues I could use advice on please.

I recently looked at "my enemies" on VRBO and AirBNB, but I am still having trouble coming up with a vacancy assumption. Some places are wide open, while others have July booked but not much after that. Is it worth paying an AirDNA to grab local data for a month? Or any suggestions or help here?

I spoke with a PM or two and they both think my property can do well (~50K of rev before booking and cleaning fees each side), They seem to have connections with corps and travel teams and just reputation/websites that can help drive this traffic. Is this something that might have some merit to it, or something that I could still achieve as a self manager without those "connections". And not asking if I can hit that figure, but more so, do good PMs normally bring clients or is that just fluff and I could pretty easily drive the same traffic myself?

Lastly, to make things more complicated, I think I could turn this unit into a legal 2 unit townhouse, unlocking a lot a value in this area. Lets say, if I hit 100K in revenue, I could prob net 40K a year, assuming I am a good operator. If you could sell and exit with $150K, which route would you take? I would probably take the 40K, if it were true, but that drives me back to my first issue and trying to prove what it can do. Vicious cycle!

Thanks very much for your time and help. Cheers