To me the biggest takeaway is that as real estate professionals, we always talk about location, location, location.

Location is key (just like all of RE :-)I've done 2 STRs and did quite well, but I did everything myself...and had great locations for each.

@David LewisOK - so - if you're just doing Internet searches and are already ready to give up... you should put some more work in first. 

Here you are basically hitting it without needing to manage a property in another location.

To provide our buyers the greatest probability for success, we cast a wide net to evaluate ALL vacation rental prospects and narrow it down to the handful that meet the search criteria. 

They can take time with their search and be more selective about a property’s location and condition.

You can also find real estate investing groups through meetup.com, Facebook, or a Google search.

Compare other rentals with a similar size, location and bedroom count to get an estimate of what the rent would be while you're living there.

From internet search/Turbo Tenant:  'In certain instances, breaking a lease in California due to a medical condition might be possible.

Its gets indexed by search engines very quickly and all those search engines keep complete copies of everything they indeWe care about our users and future viewiers, which is why our policies exist.