Market rate right now is $1200/mo and with renovations (quoted 60-75k in labor) it's hard to say because there aren't much data points, but I think I could fetch $1500-1600/mo.

Yardi's Advanced Budgeting and Forecasting module is wonderful and tends to be more accurate because it builds its forecast on all of your historical data. 

The reason to get your license is access (to see properties) and data (for ARV and comps.)The class to get your license is way more relevant to investors than agents since they work residential and most do nothing so it's useful to take the class.

Essentially you are plugging in all of your data and they are using market price studied to generate your deductions.

If you can't achieve those rents, you may be able to reface the cabinets, and paint the boxes.

They could sell and re-deploy that capital somewhere else where they can use leverage and achieve a much higher return on their equity. 

That's according to data from local MLSs of the Houston Association of REALTORS®, North Texas Real Estate Information Systems, San Antonio Board of REALTORS® and the Austin Board of REALTORS®.Ben Caballero, the first Guinness World Record holder for home sales, broke his world record for an individual real estate agent, selling 5,793 homes totaling $2,270,911,643 in a single year.Ranked as the No. 1 real estate agent for nearly a decade by REAL Trends for both total sales and number of transactions, Caballero also listed an additional 668 homes for brokerages owned by home builders for an additional sales volume of $228,992,475.

Even if the market only appreciated at the rate of inflation, my equity growth is still beating inflation because I'm conservatively leveraged.4) It is unlikely single family prices will go down in any meaningful way as evidenced by over 100 years of US housing price data.

I care about the return they achieve and not their unit count.  

The key evaluation data points for STR investors are accurate records of rental income and occupancy and/or projections from local mangers and online tools.