I'd love to utilize their expertise when assessing a property since they are local but I'm not sure what the general expectation is when I don't have a tangible property and I have not entered into contract to work with them yet.Some questions I have are: local regulations/permitting timeline, property's potential from their perspective, landscaping/amenities cost estimate (they also help facilitate this).

@Craig Curelop is a great resource to assist with this as he is in Denver and wrote the book on house hacking for BP.You are a little numbers heavy vs. expectations meaning that it seems like you are really counting on these numbers to work and they could be tight which can be scary for a first property.

If you don't know what it will rent for or how many days per month you expect it to rent, you can't even start to evaluate whether it would work as a short term rental.

It can get really sticky, cause frustration and ruin a friendship if expectations aren't set up front.

Sellers who resent paying 20 or 30 grand in commissions on houses they may be making 100k or more on are ridiculous, as are buyers who expect the world for nothing. 

I secured my first duplex in Rochester and it is fully rented generating better than expected returns.

However, I expect for along hold, it will outperform virtually all other markets.  

It did cost more money than expected due to vacancy that I did not account for.

Although supply and demand of 2nds ebbs and flows, we're still finding that there are plenty of 2nds out there today and expect more to come.

I expect prices to start creeping up in Q1/Q2 once people see 2024 was as good or better than 2023 for the majority of STRs in the area.