I myself am in a similar position looking to acquire a secondary home in the Banner Elk and would plan on using as a STR and would love any input on your findings!!

.$130k debt on home including HELOC,  monthly mortgage & HELOC $1,155 month.

I'm sure you will need tools to find deals (eg price/sqft etc), estimate rents, calculate cash-on-cash returns, cap rate etc.

These are 668 square feet and will rent $1600-$1800 depending on the urban adjacent neighborhood. that's rental prices of $2.39 to $2.69 per square foot. that's on a long term rental. on a short term rental the prices would be higher but we haven't had any clients do that yet.

Not worth it on a 100k house, probably worth it on a 300k+ house in the long run. 

on that hypothetical 100K house - going to 120 or 150 or 180 generally doesn't cut it. 

I've answered a ton of questions in other threads if you want to look back on those, just use keywords to see posts with this topic. 

@Drew Murtaugh it is going to be very hard for you to do this type of deal on your first go around.

Ive said on real eatate boards on the local, state and national level. 

How much do you expect to spend on the rehab on this?