Vacancy is expensive but part of the business however I'd rather not being getting paid for an empty unit I'm trying to fill than take my chances and end up with not getting paid from a tenant who won't leave. 

Specifically discuss with your CPA the ability to deduct depreciation expense over time, allowing you to deduct a portion of the property's purchase price as a non-cash expense, meaning you can lower your taxable income and potentially lower your tax liability.In other words, you can reduce your taxes by writing off expenses from your total taxable income.

It might not be red-hot, but it is still hot, with the average effective purchase and sale between 30 and 60 days.

If you sold it tomorrow, all you'd lose is your closing costs front/back, a super expensive lesson but ultimately most of your money is still there.Now, the purchase is done, but I assume you ran your numbers on this?

This will result in much higher costs up front, higher interest rates, and ultimately an expensive refinance down the line. 

After points and everything, gets REAL expensive for an inexpensive property.

I wonder if you incurred the additional cost to put in a second bath, would it be too much more expensive to simply create two separate units and add a kitchenette into the second space?  

Another area where a good agent can guide you.Nightly rates are all over the place, but I will say that they look to be on the lower side on average.

Which may be what we'll need to do; was hoping for a simpler, less expensive workaround...

Materials are more expensive now than when the book came out.