I am wondering what people's experiences are on starting a STR in a somewhat new market. Specifically, I am looking at a house in Montgomery, IL. It is a beautiful house with walkout basement into a gorgeous backyard ...

Truly seeing how valuable BP is in such a short time.

My wife and I do short term rentals.

Maybe a short sale.

The third party leasing companies are able to leverage economies of scale/ bulk buying power on equipment / vertical integration to drive costs down such that they can install solar cheaply enough that they will be making money on the system very quickly if not immediately (by selling the tax credits to banks/investors/tax equity funds and by selling energy back to the grid at a premium) .

How much did your homeowners insurance increase when you added short term rental to your policy?

i.e. you might save 50k by doing it yourself, but it might cost you 2500 or 4500/month in lost Short Term Rents, so you'll 'lose' a lot by not finishing fast.Just some things to think about.

As far as some general criteria/thoughts:- My workplace is in the Cobb/Vinings area and I would ideally like to be a < 30 min drive to work (though I don't mind if its up to 1 hour away since that is my current commute)- I'm interested in using a FHA loan to put ~5% of a down payment (3.5% down pmt + 1.75% upfront mortgage insurance premium)- My target all-in purchase price range is between 200k - 400k - I would prefer to live in a 'A' or 'B' class property that I could rent another unit to a young or established professional/college or grad student- Just from discussion with my friends, a lot of them seem to dig living in areas like Midtown, Buckhead, Virginia Highlands, Brookhaven, Lindbergh.. how feasible would it be for me to househack in any of those areas and expect to generate a decent return in the future once I move out and rent out my unit?

To keep it short, I'll end it here in hopes of a good conversation.

I will be contacting my bank shortly to see if I can work with them to figure out a price range that I can work with for looking at a house as well as see if they have any agents.