I don't do vacation rentals just for the money... I have enough. The focus only on money won't keep someone out of the graveyard. It is the journey as much as the destination. As some say, a life well lived.
I do them also for the experience. I like finding them, I like staging them, I like theming them, I like prepping them, I like automating them, optimizing them, running them, interacting with guests at times, providing an amazing experience.
It is part of the reason I am concerned what we say that draws the inexperienced in. The focus on Arbitrage, scaling rapidly, easy riches, remote, PMS, "works for me" is tiring.
It is not about profit. It is about risk adjusted profit. There are no guarantees in STR, especially for newbs.
Every building is one meth lab, one disaster, one delisting, one dishonest/disastrous PM, insurers who will no longer cover old wiring, one sudden change in regulations, one set of neighbors upset by several parties at your place, slammed by a series of bad reviews, a surge of rentals driving rents way down, etc away from severe trouble. As in Gatlinburg fires or CA earthquake or a FL SINKHOLE or some idiot installs hidden cams in your place, etc.
