People use “airbnb” in place of “short term rental” due to the fact that airbnb happens to be one of the more popular sites to list and find short term rentals. 

Here are the possibilities, they may not be popular but here is what they are in order of most probably to least:1.

The incredible thing about BiggerPockets is that the learning is sourced from YOU - the folks posting every day in our forums, sharing the unbelievable, yet repeatable (is that juxtaposition possible?)

These people are in an incredibly emotional place, and most of them NEED to sell but dont WANT to and you will never get those houses.

@Christopher McDaniel that's incredibly hard to answer because you need to know the scope of work.

I still think real estate investing can make sense for them due to the incredible tax advantages and long term wealth building, but I think for higher income folks it makes more sense to be a passive investor or to partner with someone else who doesn't have the balance sheet and liquidity. 

This was not the typical location that I typically invest in, however this was just south of a very popular, high-end shopping center and the entry price was affordable.

Absentee Owners have been popular for a long time, and are apparently still somewhat effective (people are still mailing to them) but they are getting multiple offers to buy their home.

We bought the original lot at an inexpensive price before the area became popular.

Finding property at a price to give you incredible returns is tough.