Also, you need to factor in the cost of replacing furniture, linens, and other supplies each year that you normally wouldn't factor in with a long term rental property.Investing in a vacation rental in Maui is great, and we've been very happy with ours and would do it all over again in a heartbeat.  

Haha, you guys are more clever than I thought!

However, is there some clever strategy here that would let me ride on the shoulders of you giants at least saddled with confidence and higher probability of negotiating success?

If you break even at 25% you need to pad that a little and expect expenses for upkeep such as linens, toiletries, and wear and tear on your furniture.

I was about to list a new topic but luckily, this thread was suggested by the clever Biggerpockets software.If I may ask for both of your opinions...Firstly, regarding LED boards on a private property, does the owner of said private property assume the cost of installing the LED and if so, are you familiar at all with such costs?

Then I will pick up some stuff for the house from Linens & Things.  

@Seth Sherman, all clever ideas!

For coffee tomorrow or lunch next week... whatever is clever!

She spent weeks researching everything from sources to by coffee, soaps, shampoos, towels, linens, evaluating dozens of agreements, how to present the property, how much to charge, how to work with the various portals (this is very interesting) she's thoroughly evaluated everything you can imagine to launch a short term rental.  

I had to come back to read this (busy sorting through the 49,000 name Tax Lien list - need to delegate that next time around) but it was well worth it.Some really excellent thought processes throughout the post, some clever idea's and strategies that could easily be applied to other scenarios.Always so easy to walk away from these problem properties and situations, but so much more rewarding to work through them a "bite" at a time!