So, again, an opportunity to take on less risk initially to get the learning curve out of the way.Bottom line - your approach doesn't have to start out one or the other. 

I'm from Baltimore as well and looking to acquire my first property.

The seller wanted to show the property prior to making an offer.

I contacted him within a few hours of the listing going live and negotiated the deal by phone.

We have had to walk away from some decent deals because rates were too high to make the numbers work.

We put in around $15,000/$20k worth of construction & furnishings to bring it up to Airbnb standards.

I have done my research but at the end of the day, I am looking for what locals are seeing with their own eyes happening to the Akron market.

Not a great position to be in. 

We are working with our property manager getting everything ready to go- we are just a few weeks out from going live (fingers crossed).

One thing I’ve always done is focus on the 75th percentile of the rent estimates, as my properties tend to fall into that range (very nice, but small with no amenities).While I think there will always be some manual research involved, the current platforms lack key functionality that could be easily implemented with the available market data and technology.1.Quality Metrics:•Filter comps to match the quality of your rentals.