I have a nice sized house (3k sf) in a nice community close to everything, on a lake, fenced in yard with nice pool & screen house, all 5-star reviews, but both last summer and this summer have been about 50% occupancy.

He wants landlord to take care of this matter by using rocks to cover the ground. 

In fact, only 0.75 acre of it can be used - the rest contains of steep hills, cliffs, heavy rocks - no way that can be used for anything (I was fully aware of that).

Their services were presented to me as a $99 a month flat fee for managing my property and he explained to me how they write a rock solid 11 page lease and help find tenants if we need a tenant.

One tidbit to note—the two biggest online rental listing companies are Zillow and Co-Star (Apartments.com is owned by the latter).

Fast forward to maybe 2 to 3 months later and a mutual 3rd party friend who knew both me or my brother and the guy who got the place contacted one of us, not saying why this was but that we could have it for what he paid PLUS 5 grand, which quickly turned into just what he paid and I got the feeling this price was dropping like a rock!

Literally dead....Do you think the prices will decline way till elections and then in the spring rock and roll again?

I have another STR outside of Morrison, CO, where Red Rocks is, and it absolutely crushes it.

Yeah here mixed reviews of investing out of state, from what I hear have to have stellar rock star of a team and property managers you can trust. 

But it's kind of like saying "does anyone want to back me in building a five star hotel" which you're probably not going to get any traction, unless you have a track record of working for a five star hotel developer for a few years and can demonstrate you truly know how to execute that type of development.