I don't know the area you are talking about, but we just spend a month in the Southern Utah area which does have a lot of national parks in close proximity.
Things to be aware of, most cities do have laws again doing nightly rentals. So even though people do it, you could run into an issue..
This particular town, St George Utah, has started zoning some areas for nightly rental use. So it's sold as an investment property. Just for giggles, we went to an open house for one new development. So they give you a very inflated nightly rental fee..like 200 bucks a night. We rented a 3 bedroom 3 year old condo for a month for 70 bucks a night. The pitchman said if you rent for 200 a night for 15 days a month you can cover your house payment.
It is in St. George, UT. I have heard of a (semi) recent change where rentals had to be 300 ft away from each other. Supposedly supported by the hotel establishment and that the rental establishment was/is/has been pushing back on that requirement.
Keep in mind that renters may not be as careful as you would. I often find something missing or damaged like broken wine glasses, dings on the drywall, missing blankets, etc..... You have to keep up with stuff like carpet and upholstery cleaning more often than if you alone used the place. Don't forget that you need liability insurance as well in case anyone gets hurt on your property - my resort recommends a $1 million policy - at a cost of $500 year.
If you use the place less that 14 days/year then you can deduct losses on taxes and that could be worth doing if you need a tax reduction. Depreciation can be done over either 27.5 or 40 years depending on what accounting method that you use. The depreciation and use of my vehicle (.54/mile deduction) turned my "profit" to a loss in 2015 for tax purposes.... Not so lucky with that in 2016 though as I only broke even.
From my VRBO experience, you have to put down a refundable damage deposit, $500-800, I wonder how hard it is to keep $xx for broken or missing items?
Tax deduction might be an added benefit, at least for a few more years.
We usually rent vacation property via Home Away From Home or VRBO sites. Sure most of them are located in desirable areas like Caribbean or Hawaii. Because of competition between renting properties, the prices are more or less affordable. I am not sure what area you want to get into but make sure to check what rent cost there and how frequently (depending on season?) it rents. In the past I had two co-workers who did purchased vacation rentals. One got it on Oahu,HI while other in Las Vegas. The Vegas rental caused only losses while Hawaiian property was doing OK (not great but OK). Good luck.
I will have to try and find out an average occupancy rate. Besides the one I asked, they claim to have to turn people away esp. during the peak dates of Holiday weekends, Zions and Bryce Canon peaks, soccer tournaments, etc. He's in partnership with his brother and between the two of them only use the house for personal time about 6 weeks of the year.
Another thing to consider is if this is a place you will want to keep going back to yourself. Will you get bored with the place after a few years? Also, is it in a popular enough place that you could do a home exchange with someone who would want to come there if you wanted to vacation elsewhere? (My place is at a major ski area that attracts people from all over the world! This week I rode the lift up with some Germans, some Brits, and some Australians....)
My advice is to do a lot of research. You can contact other owners in the area. I was bold enough to email some VRBO listings before I considered buying in my building and asked them about the HOA, rentals, etc.... I got responses from about half of them. I also talked to numerous real estate agents, went to a zillion open houses, and shopped around for over a year before I bought my place. I also rented a couple of times in the area myself to see if it was really the location that I wanted to be at and to experience the services of a couple of property managers from a guests perspective.
We go to St. George every blue moon, not a key destination (we don't golf) but it is a good stopping point on the way to Vegas, Cali, etc.
If I was retired, maybe we'd spend more time there, but not in the Summer, it's too hot for us. I could imagine spending a few weeks to a month in the Winter there when it is a balmy 60 degrees. Even visiting Bryce and Zions more in depth.
We had a vacation home for 13 years before we downsized to it. Bend is very popuilar with AirBnB and VRBO. Some neighborhoods are over run with overnighters. These turn into less family neighborhoods and more party central. Bend recently imposed some restrictions. I;m not totally up to speed but I believe there can only be so many within x feet. And some inspections or code language
We rented only once to a friend of our neighbors. Wow. that was awful. They did break some stuff. But they left the house like a rented room at the motel. The maid will get it attitude. Well honky don't play that game. No more. We did "lend it" to some close friends. And they made sure it was clean. We did have to put the kibosh on a friends plan to bring 13 people in. That was the last time there for them
We would not do it again
The thing I noticed with VRBO, et al is that everyone charges a damage deposit, cleaning fee, and if there is a pool on premises, a pool heating/cleaning fee?!? I can only assume that the $185 cleaning fee covers the cleaning and replacement of the toiletries, the deposit would be to help cover damages, not sure how down to the penny you can be, i.e. have an inventory of high theft/breakage items every change of renter?
We would plan on a stand alone house, not a condo, maybe 5 bedroom (two of them as master bedrooms) sleeping up to 10 people possibly have a pool and be in the $300-350 per night range. It would be geared more towards large families or multiple families and that would hopefully cut down on the 'drunken party atmosphere' that we wouldn't want?
