I am personally staying away from STR‘s and MTR‘s because of its inconsistency.

You have code enforcement issue in one of those cities and they do not know you, your life is not going to be easy meanwhile the person who has been there for 10 years and knows the inspectors families name will have a very different outcome than yours. 

My 2 cents would be that since it is your personal property that your CPA is right but im far from a tax professional!

Often ADU projects have comps where they compare the ADUs to little office spaces, personal yoga studios, etc.

Sometimes people who are comfortable managing the details of a job will hire a less skilled person to do it knowing they can get a MUCH better price and a "decent" job IF they themselves stay on top of how the work is being done.

Either A) you need to want a ski Airbnb/VRBO for the personal use of it but not the investment aspect of it or B) you need to be okay with some of the areas within 45 minutes of the ski areas that are totally open to short-term rentals and where the numbers are better.

@Hannah Potter Here are the things that many CPAs support their clients with:Understanding tax impact of short-term vs. long-term vs. flip before you buyWhich entity structure is best for goals and investment property typeTax and compliance on LLC or S-CorpHow to transfer property out of personal name into LLC (hard to buy 1st through entity)Ways to optimize taxes throughout the yearHow best to set up accounting to track income and expenses (doing this late is a mess)Feedback on property management systems, accounting systems. systems, etcEstimated payments to avoid penaltiesKnowing when to file and getting things in on timeMaybe a few things I missed, but this is the high-level ….. if you can get answers to the above questions on your own, plan, and file your own taxes then you can avoid the expense of a CPA.

In person, phone, email.

Me personally, I would save up a little bit more to at least 30K.

I personally like to manage the risk and take it slow and true.