They survived the market crash and the pandemic for good reason.

In contrast, single-family inventory has surpassed pre-pandemic levels, offering better deals in the SFR market right now.

However, as someone that was significantly impacted by the Pandemic, learning that the training course is $9k upfront, will deter me from realizing this opportunity.

The region has gone through some significant saturation coming out of the pandemic where a strong boom in STR occurred.  

Maybe they were never truly permanent STRs.  2020-2022 was an anomaly due to the pandemic and massive government stimulus.

When the pandemic hit and the visiting scholars had to back out of their leases, I slashed the rents and advertised on Furnished Finder but my units are not particularly conveniently located near hospitals and the area hotels were offering to house visiting nurses for tax write offs.

There was so much appreciation during the pandemic that it will take years to settle back in line with long term trends.

They did this back in ~2009 and haven't widely done it since (not even during the pandemic)

I am not an expert of the area (I focus on Miami and Broward County), but I have been monitoring since 2021 because some friends bought there multiple properties and lands.Two years ago, because of post pandemic, many developers (including Lennar & the other usual building in FL) started building a lot, prices went up up up and since last year, market stalled and now they are coming down again. 

Following a pandemic-driven boom in 2021-2022, characterized by soaring prices, rapid sales, and a sharp drop in inventory, the market began to cool in 2023 due to rising mortgage rates and economic uncertainty.