The owners had left christmas decorations up and two gingerbread houses in the oven (note the date the deal closed..)

We obviously looked around for tasteful front door colors 1st and tied it in with the decor.

So I decided to stage it myself - using a few furniture pieces from our house and my mom's house, and bought some inexpensive table settings, decorations, and rugs to pull it all together.

Challenges:1) Staying on budget with furnishings, decor, etc.

Maybe go look at other houses in your area to see what type of decor they have.

Every bedroom of mine is probably decorated like Hugh Heffners bedroom.

The main difference is that every bedroom in the STRs is decorated like Hugh Heffner sleeps there.

I generally find below-market-rent properties on Craigslist, decorate them nicely and then price them in the bottom 30% on AirBnB. 

@David Chriswick  i would try to make the kitchen, entryway, bathrooms and ceilings as decorative and new-looking as possible. 

You can build a false facade style building or even a decorative wall across the frontage of the property so it has the illusion of a nice looking business... with the storage containers stored behind.