STRs Are Evolving — Who's Building Short-Term Rentals From the Ground Up?

Question

Everyone talks about buying a house and turning it into a short-term rental… But here’s a different angle:

Who here is actually building STRs purposefully — from the ground up?

I’m seeing more developers (especially in the Midwest and Southeast) designing small STR communities with:

• No HOAs or restrictions
• Built-in smart tech and cleaning closets
• Furnished units from Day 1
• STR zoning baked in
• Cluster layouts with shared amenities like fire pits, outdoor kitchens, or plunge pools

No HOAs or restrictions

Built-in smart tech and cleaning closets

Furnished units from Day 1

STR zoning baked in

Cluster layouts with shared amenities like fire pits, outdoor kitchens, or plunge pools

It’s like “Airbnb meets horizontal multifamily.”
And the numbers make sense — especially when land is cheap, and you're designing around the STR model instead of retrofitting an old house. Is anyone doing this? What markets are you seeing this play out in?
Is this just a boutique thing, or a scalable model?

Curious to hear if anyone’s experimenting with this — or if you’d even invest in a project like that.

Collin Hays · Answer

Vacation rentals are so overbuilt, it is difficult to imagine a scenario where new construction would make any financial sense.

Jon Martin · Answer

I don't really like the idea of owning in a community where all of my neighbors are encouraged to be STR owners and basically have the same property as me. Makes it that much harder to differentiate and stand out. Sounds like a recipe for a race to the bottom, unless it is somewhere with high demand that can absorb all of those additional units.

Collin Hays · Answer

We manage a property in this exact situation. All of the properties are basically identical, and the cheapest ones win the bookings. That has always been my beef with condos. They are just a commodity.

Andrew Steffens · Answer

I like the idea of building a purpose built STR in a non HOA non saturated market on my own - but I likely would not do it in a community. There are a lot of those in Orlando not doing great at all.

Jon Martin · Answer

Agreed . . . Only possible exception would be if it is truly an A+++ location, such as in front of a highly desirable beach or other amenity coupled with high demand.

Mike Grudzien · Answer

Sounds cool. I'd invest, but "turnkey" tends to be expensive.....

Matt Mertz · Answer

We didn't build a community but we built one cabin. This worked because it was on a lot with an amazing view of the Smokies. And we purposefully designed the house to be a great stay for families and to stand out a bit from the competition. So far so good.

I recently heard some investors switching to the community model in order to classify the whole property as a commercial business. For example, if you try to sell a little cabin that crushed on rental income as residential real estate, your comps are important, not the revenue generated by the property. However if you try to sell your entire tiny-homes-in-the-mountains vacation community, you can price it based on its revenue.

Michael Baum · Answer

I can see it being viable for a one off and not in a community of STRs where they are all the same like @Collin Hays said.

STRs Are Evolving — Who's Building Short-Term Rentals From the Ground Up?

STRs Are Evolving — Who's Building Short-Term Rentals From the Ground Up?

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