I am hearing you when you say you had the builder fix the grading issue, but grading is in my experience the #1 cause of repeated water in the basement.

Initial budget $250-600k +- Please advice if it's seems like an ok plan in your opinion (preferably if you have personal experience). 

This will give you some hands-on experience and an opportunity to put into practice what you have learned from reading the book.

My big question is when quoting a renovation, since I don't have the experience what is the best way to come up with the right ARV so I can make the right offer.

Hard Rock Hotel (Downtown San Diego) has offered investment ownership opportunities for certain rooms within their establishment... has anybody had experience with this or horror stories of such investments?

Do you have any prior experience with real estate investing?

I appreciate all the insight and for the most part I do agree with you all on this being the typical experience with STR's.

You can of course do it yourself, but I think hiring expertise who has lots of experience talking to the appraisers, working for other investors, and potentially going in front of the board and potentially arbitrators is probably money well spent.

I would be happy to talk or meet-up to talk about our experience.

I don’t have any experience with investment properties any advise will be highly appreciated Thank you !!