Running a successful STR comes down to 3 Ps: pics, people & pricing.1) Decorate your house nicely & pay a professional photographer to take some amazing pics2) Hire amazing people - cleaners, handyman, recruit some neighbors to help fill in the gaps, & self-manage or hire an offshore VA to manage the property if you'd rather make yourself rich instead of making a local property manager rich (more on that here: https://www.biggerpockets.com/... )3) Price fiercely to maximize profits not occupancy (they're not the same thing).

If your buying for fishing and boating you need to keep that in mind in certain places if you have plans to ever go offshore.

The appreciation play is never certain, but it is not a gamble on hope, it is based on extensive statistical analysis of future expansion developments and years of data tracking solid growth.  

I am holding my breath to see what happens in the world of gambling as the industry has taken a huge hit in the pocket book with the combination of the pandemic lock down and the recently now permissible sports betting.

Probably most of us got started that way - taking a massive gamble. 

Either self-manage like many on here do, or hire an inexpensive offshore PM who works US hours & speaks eloquent English (that’s what I do).

My point is this, unless you do SERIOUSLY BULK mailing, it is like gambling... and... the house always wins.. and thus you lose.So in other words, the only people winning doing DMM are the DMM companies.

If you are purchasing to sell for appreciation in years, that could be a route to pursue, but is really a gamble.

So unless you want to gamble (and some people intentionally do), you generally want to run a title search and figure out what issues you may need to deal with.You could sell the property to another buyer right after the sale.

Honestly, when I’m making decisions like this, I find a few comparable properties on Airbnb in each location & pay my offshore assistants to track these properties every day for the next few months & record how much $$ they’re making.