I am not talking about small condo's but actual single family houses in the mountains or on the water etc.??

Shoulda coulda woulda bought more condos in mountain house, Tracy and Manteca.

I built and remodeled in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains in Northern CA for many years. 

By mountains?

Many mountain towns in the past have charged crazy rates to fully manage an STR in Colorado.

I opened my mountain vacation STR in April 2023 using PL and Guesty management software.

If you had this type of property manager, they would have already created the atmosphere of extremely high standards where tenants know what kind of behavior is absolutely required and this would have never happened in the first place.

Also shoot to give someone an “experience” versus just a rental house…high end is nice but also the mountain experience is even more important…immerse them in the area. 

You could look to Mountain Home or other surrounding areas that are still under valued compared to your location, because as you mentioned, the prices are to high for most home buyers so they will look to where they can afford, and that is usually the suburbs.

For example Colorado has ski/snowboarding in winter, in summer switches to river runs and mountain biking.