They are packed with experienced and new investors and are the best way to get the confidence in real life to add to books and podcasts and these forums.

Most of the investors I know have never read a real estate book or listened to a podcast. 

If I can get 2 different renters in before Jan 1 2025-is still possible by obviously getting a cost seg.Also, would all of the house hunting, going out to see properties, research (calling city for license/map searching) and buying the furnishings count toward the 1 of 7 qualifications IRS demands in addition to the 2 Airbnb bookings-preparing home, cleaning, set up etc?

They generally let you as long as you haven't had 3 bookings and your listing is less than 90 days old.  

Guests treat those kinds of bookings differently than a STR vacation home.They are used to being able to cancel the booking 24 hours in advance and all sorts of other things that STRs like ours can't really accommodate.

One challenge about short term rentals is that they are not always booked and initially getting those bookings to a minute, people were more hesitant since we didn't have the super host and premier rating.

I create a comp set to dive into the competition and analyze how many other MTR homes there are, what cleaning fees are being assessed, booking lead time, # bedrooms and competition and if EV charge, Pet policy and Pools make a difference.JURNY for a PMS system & channel manager.

For probably $100 you can get many books, including J. 

I shared my story in the Bigger Pockets MTR book actually!

No right or wrong answer here of course but I'm a fan of it.