There are plenty of reasons to think about investing in a short-term rental property out of state. You may have just gone on a vacation and decided the people who own the place you are renting were making a killing.
How to Select a Market
From a purely financial perspective, you will want to choose a market with strong rental demand, low demand for property, and good prospects for property price and rental demand growth.
Identify Your Irregular Expenses
Monthly expenses only tell a part of the story. What about birthdays, anniversaries, and the holiday season? You will eliminate financial stress when you begin handling money proactively instead of reactive.
Unlike expenses, it will be harder to project the revenue for a short-term rental. While you can get insurance quotes or calculate the property taxes after they reflect the new purchase price, you will not see a published number on what the revenue will be.
The challenge comes to determining what both of these are. First, you can scope out some competition by watching how their calendars fill up and how much they charge. Next, you can use Airbnb to see what other competitive units are getting.