Langer had groomed since the mid 50s I would say a majority of them owned rentals and were slowly liquidating and becoming private lenders..

So it is wrong to say, as a generic rule "going to college is a waste of time".

But the fact that a lot of them just collect a check each month is actually pretty nice compared to people that could lose a job due to say... a random global pandemic... but that will never happen, right?

Thus allowing you the investor to walk away whistling dixie.However, in any unit count over say a quad, the cycle, the time it takes to raise rents, renovate and decrease expenses increases.

But it is in a nicer neighborhood (I'd say a "B" neighborhood), and there are nicer houses in the neighborhood for the same or less money.

Actually I keep the standards high but an 800 credit score and 4-5 x income means they often are using the rental as a placeholder until they buy a house in say a year especially when I get a single person applying like this.

You might even see 50/50 after a second hurdle, say a higher IRR or an equity multiple.As others have said, Sponsors typically make their purse at an equity event (refinance, sale, occasionally supplemental loan) and the acquisition/PM/etc fees are “keep the lights on” fees.

So I don't disagree that shotgun marketing works, my only disagreement would be why it works.The other issue is in a motivated seller situation, there typically isn't the time to "build up the brand" in the potential client's mind, as opposed to say a B2B service where the customer profile doesn't change as the need arises, allowing you to target them earlier, or a more generic product, where targeting is less relevant.

Unfortunately as STR owners/managers not having the amount of rooms as say a hotel makes it difficult to run it any other way IMO

If so, perhaps the county will go back to the old plan of issuing licenses to homeowners to operate STRs - hard to say as there is a lot of uncertainty right now.