If you’ve spent any time shopping for cabins in North Georgia, you’ve probably noticed how often the word turnkey shows up in listings. It sounds comforting. Move-in ready. Start earning right away. For investors looking to get into short-term rentals, it’s an appealing promise, buy the cabin, list it, and watch the bookings roll in.

But in the short-term rental world, turnkey doesn’t always mean what buyers think it means.

In most real estate listings, turnkey simply means the home is furnished and livable. The beds are there, the couch looks good in photos, the kitchen is stocked enough for someone to stay the weekend. What it usually does not mean is that the property is actually ready to operate as a high-performing short-term rental. A livable cabin and a launch-ready STR are two very different things.

This is where many first-time STR investors get tripped up. They assume that because a property is marketed as turnkey, the operational side is handled: pricing, systems, guest experience, and performance are already dialed in. Then reality hits. The furniture looks nice but isn’t durable for turnovers. The listing photos don’t convert well. Pricing is either too aggressive or too conservative for the market. The setup takes longer than expected, and revenue lags behind the rosy numbers they had in mind.

A truly turnkey short-term rental is rare. When one does exist, it’s usually because the seller has already done the unsexy work: dialing in pricing over multiple seasons, solving operational issues, building systems for cleaning and maintenance, and refining the guest experience. That kind of property isn’t just furnished — it’s operationally built as a business. And when you find one, you don’t get it at a discount. You pay for that groundwork in the purchase price.

That’s the real tradeoff investors need to understand. You pay for turnkey one way or another. You can pay more upfront for a property that is genuinely launch-ready, with proven performance and fewer unknowns. Or you can buy a cheaper “turnkey” cabin that’s really just furnished and pay the difference in time, setup costs, learning curves, early mistakes, and delayed cash flow. Neither path is wrong, but they are very different experiences.

Where investors tend to get frustrated is when they think they’re buying one version of turnkey and end up with the other. Expectations don’t match reality. The first slow season feels scary. The ramp-up takes longer than anticipated. The property may still be a good investment, but the emotional whiplash comes from misunderstanding what was actually being purchased.

The truth is, no matter how turnkey a property is advertised, there is almost always work to be done after closing. If there truly isn’t, the price already reflects that convenience. The better question isn’t “Is this cabin turnkey?” but rather, “How turnkey is it really — and what am I paying for upfront versus building myself over time?”

Understanding that distinction leads to better underwriting, more realistic expectations, and far fewer surprises in your first year as a short-term rental owner in the North Georgia mountains.