The deal that looked clean

The dangerous deals are not the dumps. The dumps you walk. The dangerous ones have a pool, a new roof in the photos, and a revenue number that makes the debt service look polite.

You have seen this house. Trailing twelve months printed at $92,000. Occupancy "in the 70s." The agent forwarded an AirDNA snapshot. You ran a 25% down, 7% DSCR-shaped napkin and the cash-on-cash came back in the teens. You felt smart for twenty minutes.

One number hid the calendar

Pull the weeks. The $92k was three holiday clusters and a summer that happened once. August was 41%. September was worse. The "70% occupancy" was a year average that included a stretch when the owner lived there and blocked the calendar. The listing did not mention the block. The snapshot did not either.

A range would have shown it. Nearby comps of the same beds and baths did $48k at the 25th percentile and $91k at the 75th. The listing's number was the 75th. You bid as if it were the median.

The pool was a cost, not a feature

Pools photograph. They also leak, get fined, and sit green for two weeks in July while you are in another state. The STR comps that made the revenue look fat were houses with pools. The LTR rent for the same floor plan did not care about the pool at all. Conventional tenants in that tract do not pay extra for a liner. You bought STR seasonality and LTR expenses in the same closing.

Regulation showed up after the inspection

The city had a draft ordinance. Not passed. "Everyone still operates." Six months later the cap was real, the permit wait was eleven weeks, and your assumed occupancy was a document in a Google Drive. The comps from last year were legal then. They are not a forecast.

If a deal only pencils because last year's STR calendar repeats, you do not have a deal. You have a hope with a mortgage.

What to do instead

Size the floor. Ask what the house collects if it is merely ordinary. Run LTR on the same address so you know the walk-away. Put insurance and a manager in the model before you congratulate yourself. If the offer still makes sense at the 25th percentile, you can live with a quiet September.

The house can still be nice. Nice is not the same as paid.