But from my initial DD, their estimates of repair costs and comps used seem to have wild ranges.

Not so fast....the first thing I wanted to do was to get all of the appropriate documentation (T-12, leases, contract services, rent roll, etc.) to make sure all of the initial financials that the seller gave us were correct.

My initial plan, is to target distressed listings on sites like Zillow/Redfin, to start.

Another aspect that made the deal interesting was that it came with an extra lot, which I can parcel off at any time and recover the whole initial downpayment.

Seems like you can get there quicker by focusing on setting up short-term rentals, and perhaps ones that don't need extensive initial rehab.

It also allows us to gain experience with managing rentals as it's built out and we don't have to go looking for deals to scale the initial portfolio. 

My strategy is BRRRR with the initial purchase and rehab using private money, then pay then back with a cashout refi after 6 months, so maybe that is something you could look into.

Initially, I was hesitant to accept due to the cash flow that this property provided; however, a very tempting value-add RV park also popped up simultaneously with this off-market offer on the house.

Just a couple of initial thoughts I've been considering, but I was curious what others might be doing to further maximize their vacation rental in different, creative ways?

Initially our offer was lower than some of our competitors.