In 2008, a tech company launched and turned the real estate world on its ear. That firm was Airbnb. If you're not familiar, its business is short-term real estate rentals. The site serves as a broker for those wishing to list their properties for rent on a nightly or weekly basis -- more like a hotel than a typical rental property.

Airbnb's model was attractive enough for other companies to enter the market, too. Today, there are several options for property owners to advertise their properties for short-term rentals.

Why is this such a big deal? For one, it can allow real estate investors or any property owner to capitalize on the income opportunities that short-term rentals can provide. Charging rent per night or week, rather than per month, can be extremely lucrative.

Short vs. long

Sandra Bullock, the Oscar-winning actress, bought a property on the tourist destination of Tybee Island, Georgia, in 2001. It's a 3,300-square-foot home with four bedrooms and 2.5 baths. When she's not using it, it's available for $1,400 per night on a short-term rental website. According to Variety magazine, it requires a four-night minimum stay.

That means that the property is available for six or seven stays per month at $5,600 per visit. If it rents for just half the month, three, four-night stays, the gross rental income is $16,800.

A visit to the real estate website Zillow shows that the rental estimate on a comparable home in the same area is $5,125 per month. In other words, Bullock can rent her house for four days and make about $500 more than someone whose home in the same neighborhood rents by the month.

To extrapolate it further, if Bullock rents out her property for just two four-day stays (eight days out of the month), she will double what the owner of a similar property would make by renting it for the entire month.

That's the power of short-term rentals. It's part of why the hotel business is so lucrative.

Check the numbers

Anybody can compare the short-term vs. long-term rental income numbers themselves. As in the example above, Zillow can provide a monthly rental estimate for just about any property in the United States. Conversely, these other short-term rental sites can typically provide site visitors with per-night rental rates. It's easy to compare.

That can be an eye-opening experience for real estate investors who might be considering properties based on the rental income they can generate. "Market rents," which are what most investors study, are typically monthly figures. But by also examining short-term rates, the investor might find out that the rental income potential is far more than what it might appear on the surface.

The situation at the very least provides a reason for a real estate investor to take one extra step online to compare. A property might have more income potential than one might initially assume.

The caveats

One of the keys to successful investment in short-term rentals is location, which shouldn't be a surprise. For a property to realize its potential regarding lucrative short-term rental rates, it needs to be in a place where short rentals are in demand.

That might limit possibilities to tourist destinations (such as Bullock's Tybee Island home) or downtown, urban centers. Tourists and business travelers buoy the short-term rental business, so property in New York City or Miami Beach will likely have much more short-term rental demand than a residence in, say, Billings, Montana.

Also, the websites that advertise short-term rentals take a cut. Every property management company does, but the out-of-town owner of a short-term rental property will likely have to pay for both marketing and physical property management. On the flip side, advertising on a site such as Airbnb means exposure to a worldwide pool of would-be renters. Someone who's already open to the idea of being an out-of-town investor might be wise to investigate the ins and outs of offering prospective properties as short-term rentals.

Short-term rentals might not be something for every real estate investor, but for those who are interested in investing in areas of high tourist or business-traveler demand, they can be a way to maximize a property's rental income potential.