I'm looking at purchasing a condo in a ski town/village to use as an STR and am curious what locations others have had success in. 

My PM used to have a person who did the payments and every year around Feb, she'd send out an annual statement for your taxes showing how much you got in rent, spent in repairs and management fees. 

If they do the escrow or just partial pay rent they you take them to court for non-payment.

I think it works for a great buy and hold rental situation, but it is probably a class C neighborhood and you will need to put a lot of money to rehab a 1950's property to get it rent ready.

65% of your success is the list, not the letter.I totally disagree with Jonathan about saying you will not lowball.You will, and then you look stupid.Unless you are a realtor and can offer listing solutions, I would say you will NOT pay full retail so you don't get all the calls of worthless leads that want full retail.The only reason to do this is if you are a rookie and want practice talking to people.Easier and cheaper practice is to go to craigslist or facebook marketplace and call landlords that are renting and ask them to buy.Your letter is fine, if you find a motivated seller, they will call.

location location location. 

If you’re looking to escalate as quickly as possible, it may be worth looking into a multi family and rent one side, and live out of the other.

Resale we do urban core where rents are higher.

If I gave you a range of $25 -85 and told you it depends on the specific trade, location, type of construction, density, number of stories...Knowing the costs of all the pieces is useful, but is a moving target.

I'm potentially looking to purchase a small rental building which falls under the NYC rent stabilized program.