Vacation homes can make money during a pandemic (Or similar) if the travel costs to the destination are minimal.

I'm a consultant and work from the road- traveling around the country in my RV.

And travel of course.

@Bonnie Rhodes The downtown is starting to get quite cleaned up & the downtown airport is now the main commercial airport for commercial travel which should help the main part of town. 

Our keys frequently travel in beach bags, get wet, and get roughed up by sand. 

The deminimus type expense you're thinking of is a completely different concept used in a different type of business and is usually related to travel expenses.The IRS has no concept of "this deduction is allowable because it seems reasonable". 

(looking in Maine at the moment- thinking skiing or hiking travelers).

You can also focus on “essential” workers by doing things like advertising on sites for traveling nurses...etc.Just keep in mind that however you market the property, you have treat all applicants the same regardless of their income or based other fair housing rules.

I also would advise anyone thinking about investing tens of thousands (or more) of dollars and guaranteeing hundreds of thousands more in loans, etc. to spend time and money traveling to that market and really learn about it. 

Our criteria is to find and I’m merging market that we wouldn’t mind traveling to if needed.