A practical guide for homeowners deciding whether and how to operate a short-term rental.

Under 40 pages of easy-to-read guidance

Written by Erin and Chuck Luce
Founders of ProHost® Vacation Rentals

Many homeowners consider turning their property into a short-term rental without fully understanding how the business actually works.

Online advice tends to fall into two categories. Some comes from companies selling management services. Other advice focuses heavily on optimization tactics, pricing tools, and technology stacks.

Both can be useful.

But they often skip the most important question:

Should this property really be a short-term rental in the first place?

Over the years, we’ve had many conversations with homeowners trying to answer exactly that question.

Because of how our management company is structured, we can only work with homes that meet certain revenue thresholds and operational criteria. Many properties simply don’t qualify.

When that happens, we still try to help the homeowner think through the decision.

Those conversations often start the same way:

“If this were my house…”

From there we talk through things like:

• whether short-term renting actually makes sense for the property
  

• what realistic revenue expectations look like
  

• whether self-managing is viable
  

• when simplifying the approach might make more sense
  

• and when the best outcome may actually be not doing it at all

Over time, we realized those conversations were repeating themselves.

This guide is an attempt to put that thinking in one place.

This guide is intentionally different from most short-term rental advice.

It is not a system for maximizing revenue.

It is not a deep dive into technology tools or pricing strategies.

Those topics are widely discussed elsewhere and can be useful once the fundamentals are clear.

Instead, this guide focuses on the decisions that determine whether a property succeeds or struggles long before optimization becomes relevant.

In other words, it helps homeowners think through the bigger picture before committing time, money, and energy to the short-term rental model.

Inside the guide we explore questions such as:

• Why large management companies often say “yes” to almost every property
  

• Why some homes struggle even with good execution
  

• The difference between operating a home as a lifestyle asset versus a business
  

• How to think about realistic revenue expectations
  

• When self-managing can work well
  

• Why a thoughtful “no” can sometimes be the best outcome

While ProHost primarily manages homes on Cape Cod, the ideas in this guide apply to short-term rental owners almost anywhere.

This guide tends to be most helpful for homeowners who are:

• considering turning a home into a short-term rental
  

• deciding whether to self-manage or hire a manager
  

• trying to understand realistic revenue expectations
  

• evaluating whether the short-term rental model actually fits their property

If This Were My House… is a short, thoughtful guide designed to help homeowners make better decisions before committing to the short-term rental model.

It’s intentionally concise and designed to be read in a single sitting.