How to Find Off-Market STR Deals (and Get MLS-Level Data) as an Out-of-State Investor

The best STR markets are rarely the ones in your backyard. But analyzing deals out of state usually means no MLS access and no local agent, so most investors fly blind.

That information gap is what separates investors who build multi-market portfolios from those who stay stuck in their local area waiting for the "right" deal to appear. The good news: the gap is closable — and you don't need a real estate license or a flight to close it.

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‍The out-of-state problem

Without local data, you are stuck guessing at revenue and comps in a market you have never visited. That is exactly where bad deals happen.

The typical out-of-state investor workflow looks like this: find a property on Zillow, Google the market, pull an AirDNA estimate, and hope the numbers work. The problem is that none of those steps give you what you actually need — real comps at the address level, showing what properties like yours are actually earning right now, with the specific amenities that drive the difference between a 50th and 90th percentile operator.

This is why AirDNA vs. Real Comps: Why STR Revenue Estimates Are Often Wrong matters so much for out-of-state investors specifically. A regional estimate might be directionally right for a market overview, but it can be tens of thousands of dollars off for a specific property — and when you're underwriting from a distance, that error has nowhere to hide.

The other out-of-state trap is anchoring to the wrong market entirely. Before committing to a geography, it's worth running the data on several options side by side. How Successful STR Investors Find Profitable Markets Fast walks through the filtering process experienced investors use to narrow from "everywhere" to a shortlist worth analyzing deeply.

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MLS-level data without a license

strIQ lets you search 100+ markets and over a million properties with instant revenue estimates and real comps, so you can shortlist and underwrite anywhere, from anywhere, before you ever book a flight.

This is the core unlock for out-of-state investing. When you can pull a full comp set — nightly rates, occupancy, amenities, revenue range from conservative to top performer — on any address in any market, you're working with the same quality of information a local investor has. You're not guessing. You're underwriting.

And once you've identified a property worth pursuing, the 10-minute deal analysis framework applies the same way it does locally. How to Analyze a Short-Term Rental Deal in Under 10 Minutes walks through the exact four steps — revenue range, comps, expenses, deal score — that let you vet a deal fast regardless of where it's located.

One thing worth noting for out-of-state deals specifically: your expense assumptions need to account for professional management, since you won't be self-managing from another state. That changes your cash-on-cash math. The Real Cost of STR Investing: How Much You Need to Get Started includes a realistic breakdown of what management adds to the cost stack and how to model it correctly.

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Then get warm introductions

Once you find a market worth pursuing, our Preferred Provider Network makes warm introductions to vetted agents, lenders, designers, and CPAs in that market, so you have a local team without cold-calling.

This piece matters more than most investors realize. The data can tell you whether a market and property make financial sense. But execution — closing the deal, furnishing the property, setting it up to perform — requires people on the ground. Cold-calling local agents and hoping they understand STR investing is a slow, unreliable path. Warm introductions to people who already work with STR investors cut weeks off your timeline and reduce the risk of getting bad advice from someone who's never run a comp in their life.

If you're thinking about bringing a partner into an out-of-state deal to share the operational load — or splitting the capital requirement — Solo Founder vs Partnerships: Which Is Better? is a useful read before you structure anything.

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Find and underwrite deals in any market, free to start. Get free access to our Deal Analyzer