I think the STR arbitrage model is total garbage.

I'm not bankrolling a large portfolio so the popular option to gouge smaller managers for a minimum $100/mo isn't a biz model I'm willing to support. 

Peter Vekselman himself is a joke and his partner Julia has no idea how real estate works, they sell this software and business model which leaves users in middle of nowhere and then they do not have a refund policy, any program who has no refund policy is basically a scammers group.

Find a good property being totally mismanaged - offer to purchase 60% and take operational control selling your property management expertise and future profitability, providing property owner/seller with enough cash to pay off his pressing debts keeping current loan in place. 

Buy and occupy for 2-3 years, improve it, and sell it tax free (up to $500k if you and your partner both OO for 2 yrs) so you can move onto the next one.Starting to think team house hacking might be the primary way for folks to make this model work nowadays.

You’ll reverse engineer top-performing properties and get title & description recommendations, discover rare amenities in your market, & utilize competitor’s reviews to convert more guests.My expertise is in increasing visibility in search engines (and lead generation for law firms, roofing companies, etc) and not the AirBNB/VRBO algorithms.

However, it does demand solid digital marketing expertise to see positive results.

., who has a business model I respect, if I end up in that situation it most likely means I haven't done my job well.

What you are calling wholesaling as a business model, sucks.

But then after 1 or 2 years, how do they exit the hard money for long-term PadSplit model?