Short-term rental

A short-term rental (STR) is a furnished home, apartment or room let out for short stays, usually anything from one night to a few weeks. It sits between a hotel stay and a traditional tenancy, and it is the market Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo built their vacation rental categories around.

The word to watch is regulation. Many cities require registration numbers, cap the nights you can let, or apply a tourist tax, and the rules change often. Beyond compliance, running one well takes the same disciplines as a hotel: pricing, calendar sync, guest communication and turnovers, which is exactly the work a PMS exists to automate.