I am of the opinion that the best STRs are properties that don't compete with hotels - meaning that they are 4-5 bedrooms for large groups or have a unique location/setting. 

If your brother is looking to invest in real estate largely from a tax reduction standpoint they should pay a qualified real estate tax strategist to review their specific situation and what may or may not work for them. 

Still, we appreciate you and the entire REI team for your support and excellent service.  

@Cameron Porter should be available on our website end of next week:)

I do not like the web site as much as I liked the app. 

Should I have one website advertising both and have business cards list that I offer buy/sell realestate services and PM services.

Also, not very easy to use typical methods of valuation like comparable sales - there is no public tax assessor's website that you can just freely grab this from. 

That is just not realistic in this current market.So in my opinion it's important to expose yourself to a large number of deals, so you can develop an intuitive sense of what's reasonable and what's not (and quickly discard the ones that aren't).And it's true that there is no way to 100% protect from fraud (and not just in passive real estate investments but even in public stocks etc.).

Tom's link is excellent.

Our website was just OK, our email campaigns were hit and miss, our conference presence was fairly minimal.