I was earning next to nothing as a flight instructor so my wife spent the cash on furniture.

I think also folks that do the STR have to realize the 35 to 50k spent furnishing the home is what many times makes these negative cash flow and of course over a 10 year run the furniture most likely will need replacing upgrading to keep relevant..

You'll probably take a haircut if you sell the product in bulk.

You do not need to have a license to manage an apartment community.Property management can then be broken down into "annual" property management (normally a unit without furniture), a seasonal rental management (such as 2 weeks to several months up to 6 months) and then vacation rentals (sometimes for the weekend, a week, etc..).Each state has its different rules and licensing for each area of property management (annual, seasonal and vacation) as well as the different areas of management (association, apartment and property).I hope that helps.My understanding is that if you are an EMPLOYEE of the property owner you do not need to have a license; if you provide property management services as your management co owned business or as an independent contractor, then you do need a license.  

The STR eats up a ton of your time and money: buying furniture, staging it, getting professional photos for AirBNB, managing the AirBNB inquiries and reservations, responding to guest complaints and reviews, cleaning and re-stocking the unit after each stay (or managing and paying for a cleaner/re-stocker), switching lock codes after every stay, etc., etc.

Quote from @V.G Jason: Quote from @Danny Liu: For someone like me who has no skills in construction whatsoever (I can barely put together my own furniture), BRRRRs are much better than flips because:1.

If you decide to rent by the room or do short or medium-term rental, besides using 0% credit card, you could look into rent-to-own furniture (they'll deliver).

It was pretty cool with how the light came in from different emails but a pain for furniture placement. 

Now add in the cost of the furniture, your free shuttle, pool maintenance, common area utilities, property management, etc.

Also, make sure it is very clean...in my experience a vacant unit can get kind of dusty and need follow up light cleaning if it is vacant longer than a month, especially if it has had a fair amount of viewings/traffic. the cleaner the unit the higher quality of tenant and price.Also, you should get your realtor to facetime or send video of the neighborhood, if your neighbors have furniture or mattress left out at the curb, lots of graffiti, people loitering, or their is a homeless encampment down the street, there could be issues that have nothing to do with your property, but more to do with the immediate neighborhood.the other suggestions about zillow, gets you on HotPads, trulia at the same time, since they are owned by same company...the other app is apartments.com.