Loon Mountain Ski area slope side home .

The funny thing is I usually get this (income question) from people looking at second home rental properties. I answer this way" Buy a duplex close to where you live", and you check the tenants rental application, you paint clean, and re-carpet between rental, mow the lawn and chase renters for money when they are late.

This answer is always met with "no I mean up here in ski country",well you can't make a big profit on vacation home income, it's too seasonal. You can cover your costs if you don't have a mortgage and still have a couple of weeks (14 days max with certain write offs) a year to enjoy the place.

The alternative is to buy for long term resale or to use later in your retirement, in this case a yearly rental will eliminate the utility costs that would remain in your name for the short-term rentals and give you a fixed income to count on.

In any case real estate buyers are always looking for the return on investment and this is a long term strategy that can pay-off in an well established resort location. For the short term rental many of my customers say they do very well with cyberrentals, vrbo (vacation rental by owner) and Craig's lists, and use pay pal to arrange payment, with a local maid service holding keys and cleaning between rentals.