What to Look for When Buying a Vacation Rental Property: Lessons From Hosts Who Did It Wrong the First Time
First-time STR buyers share the specific mistakes that cost them money and bookings. From HOA CC&R traps to permit waitlists…
Feature Writer & Editorial Voice
I grew up in a bilingual household in San Antonio where storytelling was just what you did. My abuela told folktales, my father turned his day into an adventure every evening at dinner, and somewhere along the way I decided I wanted to do that for a living. I started as a travel writer, spending years crisscrossing the Southwest and Latin America writing about the people and places I encountered. A profile I wrote on a family-run bed-and-breakfast in Oaxaca ended up getting national attention, and that piece taught me something I have carried ever since: the best stories live at the intersection of place, culture, and hospitality. When short-term rentals started reshaping communities, it felt like a natural fit. I saw hosts opening their homes, neighbors adjusting to change, entire neighborhoods in conversation about what belonging means. Those are the stories I chase now. I write features, profiles, and the occasional editorial, always trying to find the human thread that connects individual experiences to something bigger. I split my time between Austin and Mexico City, which gives me a front-row seat to how home-sharing plays out across very different cultures. If my writing works the way I hope it does, you finish reading and feel like you have been somewhere, met someone, and maybe understood something a little differently than before.
First-time STR buyers share the specific mistakes that cost them money and bookings. From HOA CC&R traps to permit waitlists…
EU Regulation 2024/1028 went live today. In major European cities, short-term rental listings have already contracted sharply. Here is where…
With less than a month before the FIFA World Cup kicks off, we talked to STR hosts in Dallas, Houston,…
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The gap between high-earning and average STR hosts is not about property quality or market luck. It is about pricing…
StaySTRA data and real host interviews reveal where short-term rental investing works in 2026, where it does not, and what…
Thousands of STR hosts ran the exit math during the 2023-2024 correction. These are the stories of hosts in Gulf…
Five STR hosts across World Cup, mountain, beach, suburban, and lake markets share what they actually earned in 2026. Real…
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