A short-term rental is a small business attached to a house, and it is worth treating the purchase that way. Before an offer, the questions that matter are what the property can realistically book, what it costs to run through a full year, and what has to stay true for the numbers to work.

I work with STR investors to help them locate and purchase profitable short-term rental real estate in Arizona. Rules differ from one municipality to the next across the valley, so where a property sits changes what you are allowed to do with it.

If you already own a short-term rental and it is underperforming, the same read applies — occupancy, nightly rate and running costs usually explain the gap between what a property earns and what it should.