Predictive data analytics and cheap hardware have just recently been disrupting many industries with settled orthodoxies of operation and I believe property management is still operating on mostly the same ideas (again I am not a professional, just an observation).  

Below is my funnel with the help of my 4 VAs. 1 Data scraper, 1 skip tracer, and 2 cold callers.

I gathered data from Airbnb and estimated the average total price/booking and average number of bookings in my area to get the average total income I could receive on a month-to-month basis; however, that only came out to about half of what long-term rentals are going for. 

You can pull historical rental data through Zillow Data.

I'd like to bounce around a few software ideas with you, regarding underwriting / data analytics for commercial real estate deals. 

The group's rental estimates, markets' appraisals and appreciation data are questionable and I have found them to be optimistic numbers even in the best of times.

The data they mentioned are difficult to verify and they will ghost after the sales, particularly with any perceived negativity and numbers that do not match up with their rosy estimates.

Yes, it’s a different landscape with a new type of traveler, but the data clearly shows there are people who want and need short-term rentals.Add this all up and you’ve got perfect market conditions to dive in headfirst:Competition is low.Demand is high.CompetitionAs noted above, people have been fleeing the short-term rental game for a variety of reasons.

It's important to study the data that's out there to try and get some idea of market patterns though.

The appraiser will almost certainly use your purchase price as a data-point in that appraisal report.