I’m looking to manage a few short-term rentals in the area and would love to hear from experienced hosts or managers about what it takes to excel in this space.Here are a few questions I’d love to get your thoughts on:What skills or qualities make a great property manager?

If they have excellent credit, great job history, great references and you met them and got a good feel. 

His staff was equally welcoming, and my business partner and I signed up for his in-person workshops for 2025—it was an excellent deal.

Don't solely rely on third-party management companies; instead, focus on building a solid asset management plan and, if needed, bring in experts or partners who excel in this field.

Brandon Turner's Rental Property Investing book is an excellent primer to understanding the happy path for purchasing a property - however in this market it really comes down to having bulletproof assumptions on rents/taxes/R&M/etc. as with rates as high as they are/inventory as low as it is, there is less cushion in your returns if you analyze properties with bad assumptions.

You could put in a range of numbers for purchase price and closing costs, renovation expenses, and expected returns and you could very quickly get a range of projected return on investments (although an excel spreadsheet could easily do this as well), but I'm sure as technology develops we will see even more sophistication in AI's ability to assist in deal analyzing.

And I did buy 13 lot package in Henry county but it was all sewer and water.. smokin deal 3k a lot held them 2 years and sold for 35k a lot :)@Jay Hinrichs excellent advice - always appreciate your insight!

Make sure, before you purchase, that you have an excellent team.

Since seller-paid fees usually cover their services, you get local expertise without additional expenses.Final ThoughtsLive where you like, but invest where you can achieve financial freedom.Out-of-state investing has proved to present excellent opportunities.

I suspect there are already excellent deals, and that there is reason to believe that buying will be rewarded handsomely over the next 10 years, but that the "bottom" may still be 12-18 months away in a market like Tampa.