Can the course help if I want to buy a short-term, Airbnb-type place?

Short answer: That's not what the course is intended for. 

Long answer: Maybe.

If you’d like to learn about how to find, analyze, finance and renovate those properties, yes. But if you’d like to learn about the management, staging, furnishing and advertising of those properties, as well as specific vacation rental-related tax and legal implications, no.

My philosophy on vacation rentals is the following:

Have multiple exit strategies. Buy a vacation rental only if it also makes sense as a traditional 12-month rental.

You can earn additional money using it as a vacation rental. But if for any reason you can no longer rent the property on a short-term basis (e.g. if your city council outlaws short-term rentals in your area), you can revert the property to a 12-month rental and still be okay. In other words, you minimize risk by finding a property that could satisfy both uses.

For that reason, the sections in this course on finding, analyzing, financing and renovating apply regardless of your use of the property. But the sections on tenant management would not.

We also don't cover the unique needs of a vacation rental owner, like how to resupply consumables, manage cleaners, monitor utility usage, and handle sales and occupancy taxes.

That said, quite a few students have purchased vacation rentals with the knowledge they gained in the course. They feel good about their purchases because they know how to turn their properties into long-term rentals in case their short-term rental plans are halted.