Purchasing property to short term rent

Depends on the budget.

Theres a lake house on lake Tuscaloosa for sale, but that’s 700k

You can buy smaller houses for 250-300 that STR pretty well there (I have clients who have some)

Condos tend to be better for long term in that market. Beaches do better IMO for condo

Own something close to you. Its just a pain to have a vacation home far away, and expensive. My father in law used to have a place in Jackson hole which has no direct flights from the south. So a long day flying and expensive to fly, it was usually $500+ a ticket so anything I wanted to take our family of 4-5 depending on the time plus the cleaning fee it was still a $3000 trip at least with a rental car, airline tickets, and cleaning fee.

You'll use a place a lot more you can just pop into. No one there for the weekend at the lake 2 hours away? Lets go.

No one there in your cabin 9 hours away in Gatlinburg? Man I don't want to make the drive for 1.5 days.

The one market I think is undeveloped is just a small weekend getaway place with some acreage and a small pond. Not a lake house, obviously plenty of those. Just something that's reasonably priced a lot of people can do a 3 day or 4 day weekend. Its close by you can get some space from the city life, some fresh air, and just do a lot of nothing really. But has a water feature like a river to float, pond, etc. to offer a little extra but also maybe cool off during certain times of the year.

You’re late to the party bud. STR isn’t the play anymore. Big cities are kicking Airbnb down a notch and current interest rates eat your profit