Investment Grade STR underwrites short-term and vacation rental real estate as an institutional asset class. Send a property and we will run it through the full analysis, show you both the short-term rental case and the long-term rental floor, label every revenue input by source, and tell you what it finances at and with whom. Where the numbers do not support the deal, the analysis says so.
What can Investment Grade STR do for you?
Four things. Underwrite a specific property or a shortlist using the ten-step analysis sequence. Screen a market before you commit time to it, including regulatory posture, permit transferability, and hazard exposure. Place debt through DSCR and short-term rental financing against whichever track actually finances. And support a disposition when the right answer is to sell, refinance, or convert.
What should you send with an inquiry?
As much or as little as you have. A listing link is enough to start. If you already hold the property or are under contract, the analysis is faster and more precise with twelve months of platform payout statements, the most recent Schedule E, the permit number, the current insurance declarations page, and the management agreement if one exists. If you have none of that, say so. An honest starting point produces a better analysis than an optimistic one.
What will you get back?
A dual-track model showing the short-term rental case and the long-term rental floor side by side, with DSCR computed on both. A full expense stack rather than a management fee and a wish. A source label on every revenue input, with seller-reported and listing-reported figures flagged as unverified wherever they are carried forward. The regulatory and hazard screens run before the cash flow model rather than after it. And a plain statement of where the deal breaks, if it breaks.
Who do we work with?
First-time vacation home buyers, individual investors building a portfolio, super-host aggregators, family offices, and institutional buyers. The analysis does not change with the size of the check. What changes is the scope: a single-property buyer usually needs one property underwritten and financed, while a portfolio buyer needs market screening, acquisition criteria, and a repeatable underwriting standard applied across a pipeline.
What does an engagement usually look like?
It starts with a conversation about what you are trying to build, because the right answer differs sharply between a buyer optimizing for first-year tax treatment, a buyer optimizing for durable cash flow, and a buyer optimizing for appreciation in a constrained market. Those three buyers should not purchase the same property, and much of the value in the early conversation is establishing which one you are. From there the work is property-specific: analysis, financing, and where relevant, acquisition and disposition support.
What if you already own short-term rentals?
Existing portfolios are frequently the more useful engagement, because the decisions available are broader than at acquisition. A property underperforming its market may be a pricing and distribution problem rather than an asset problem. A property whose regulatory environment is tightening may be better refinanced or converted than sold. A portfolio financed at acquisition terms may qualify for materially better debt after twelve months of seasoning. And an owner who was unaware of the short-term rental tax treatment at purchase may still be able to capture it through a look-back study.
What we will not do
Produce a projection designed to support a decision you have already made. Present a seller’s revenue claim as verified income. Underwrite a property on the short-term track alone. Or tell you a deal works when it does not. The value of an independent analysis is entirely in its willingness to reach an unwelcome conclusion, and a shortfall identified before closing is worth considerably more than an optimistic model that agrees with you.
How to reach us
Use the contact form on this page with the property address or listing link and a sentence about what you are trying to accomplish. If you are evaluating several properties, send the shortlist rather than choosing one first, since comparative analysis is usually more informative than sequential analysis. If you are earlier than that and still selecting a market, say which markets you are considering and what constraints matter to you, whether that is wildfire and hurricane exposure, regulatory stability, financeability, or long-term rental depth underneath the visitor economy.
How long does an underwriting take?
A first-pass screen on a single property is quick, because most properties fail on something identifiable early: a market that fails the hazard screen, a permit regime that does not transfer, or a revenue estimate that cannot support the asking price once a full expense stack is applied. A complete analysis takes longer, because it involves confirming permit status directly with the issuing authority, obtaining a real insurance quote on the specific address rather than assuming a percentage, reconciling seller statements against an independently built estimate, and establishing which lenders will actually fund the property given its documentation. The parts that take time are the parts that are worth paying for.
What if the answer is that the deal does not work?
Then that is the deliverable, and it is frequently the most valuable one. A property rejected before closing costs nothing except the analysis. The same property purchased on an optimistic model costs the difference between the modeled and realized performance every month for the length of the hold, plus whatever the exit gives back. Independent analysis has value only to the extent it is willing to reach a conclusion the buyer did not want, and an analyst who never says no is not providing an opinion.
Can you underwrite a market rather than a property?
Yes, and it is usually the better place to start. Market-level work establishes regulatory posture and permit transferability, hazard exposure and insurability, the depth of long-term rental demand underneath the visitor economy, transaction volume and therefore exit liquidity, and whether lenders currently restrict the jurisdiction. A buyer who screens markets first avoids running detailed property analyses inside markets that were never going to clear, which is the most common way time gets wasted in short-term rental acquisition.
Do you work with buyers outside your own markets?
Yes. The analysis is market-agnostic because the method is, and the network extends across all fifty states through a broker of record structure. What varies by market is the diligence detail: permit regimes, insurance availability, and long-term rental depth differ enormously between jurisdictions, and the analysis carries those differences rather than applying a national average.
What does it cost?
It depends on scope, and the conversation about scope should happen before any commitment. A single-property screen, a full dual-track underwriting with financing placement, market-level screening across a shortlist, and portfolio-level work are different engagements. Where financing placement is part of the engagement, the economics generally work differently than a pure advisory arrangement, and that will be explained plainly rather than buried.
What happens after the analysis?
Whatever the analysis supports. Where the property clears, the next step is usually financing: identifying which lenders will fund it given its documentation, which income posture applies, and what terms are realistically available, then placing the debt. Where the property clears but the terms are poor, the conversation is often about timing, since twelve months of clean operating history frequently improves the financing more than the price negotiation improved the purchase. Where the property does not clear, the analysis will say which step it failed at and whether the failure is fixable. A revenue shortfall is a pricing conversation. A permit that does not transfer is not.
Why does source transparency matter to you?
Because a figure whose provenance is lost stops looking uncertain. An unverified seller revenue number that survives three steps of a model arrives at the conclusion looking exactly like a verified one, and the buyer reading the output has no way to tell them apart. Labeling every input by source, and flagging seller-reported and listing-reported figures as unverified wherever they are carried forward, is the only mechanism that keeps that distinction visible at the point where the decision is actually made.