First, developing your awareness of the STRs around you is key to knowing how much someone is charging at any given time, the market's occupancy rate, and how much revenue your competitors are driving in.

Most banks only deal with SF owner-occupants. 

In order to do this you need to have deal flow and you need to know 1) How to recognize a good, profitable deal, 2) How to put together funds quickly to buy the deal before someone else does and in such a way where you are protected and the deal is protected, 3) How to run the project so that you follow the budget and don't overspend or overbuild, 4) How to attract an end buyer or a renter and which documents to use to protect yourself and the buyer, 5) If you are going to keep the property then you need to know how to set up the property from the start to best help you in the refinance later, and 6) You need to know how you are planning on managing the property from the beginning in order to make sure it will be profitable at the end.

There will always be buyers for good deal!

I've seen too many that prey on newbies and set them loose on the world, begging for "no money down" deals. 

Not a bad idea but if the deal goes bad just remember you are taking money from your primary residence. 

Quote from @Christina Venegas: Quote from @Dominic Mazzarella: Quote from @Christina Venegas: is it possible to do HELOC on a primary home that was purchased 6 months ago with 5% of down payment, the property was $145k and it was appraised at that time for $160k. i need advice from investors and lenders, if anybody knows some lenders that could help me I would really appreciate it, thanks for taking your time to respondIt’s definitely possible to get a HELOC on a primary home, but most lenders have a seasoning periods which are typically 6-12 months after purchase before they’ll allow it.

So, when investing in areas they don’t really know, investors should research the different property Class submarkets.

A way to look at it could be to find buyers first and figure out their buy box and after that go out and hunt for deals for them and run it by them when you find something.

If it were me, I would reach out to other franchisees in your area (perhaps your Development Agent might have some insight...see...I know the Subway lingo and I've done Subways in my banking days).