That's rather like asking, how long is a piece of string.
In my experience, generally the first year, you don't make enough to fully pay for all of the expenses and payments on a property unless you are in an area which is very desirable to tourists, there are relatively few hotels available, tourists come year round and you can legally rent out your home for as short a stay as you'd like.
However, you can generally pay a very big chunk of your yearly expenses starting almost right away.
If you think of the strategy of renting out your home about 10 weeks a year, thereby not creating much wear and tear on the property and that you are happy to have the rent cover a lot of the expenses while doing so, you'll probably be very pleased.
I'd advise against buying a home with the hope that you can make all of the payments and all expenses unless you really know the area and what you are doing.
Generally speaking, you can charge to rent a home by the week for a little more than people would pay per month on a yearly lease.
Therefore, theoretically, if you rent for 12 weeks a year, you would be making the same amount of money than if you were just renting out your home for a year.
However, that is not the case.
When you are looking at the profitability of the situation, remember you are also paying for the utilities and if you are out-of-town, you will also be paying someone else to take care of both the property and customer for you.
There is also a bit more wear and tear on the home (but not a lot if you use my simple method of screening renters).
So, if you can rent out your home for a little more than 15 weeks a year at full price, you can "have your cake and eat it too" in that you can make about as much as you would if you rented the home out on a yearly lease but still keep the property as a second home and have your renters effectively share in much or all of your upkeep costs.
You can also turn it into a business and get tax deductions when going there, as truthfully you'll be working to maintain the property as no matter how good your person on the spot is, you'll always be finding problems that got missed and getting them fixed or fixing them yourself.
If you go into the project of renting out your second home without expecting it to pay all your expenses, you'll be happy.
As the years go on, if you are doing a good job of ensuring that your customers are really enjoying your home, you'll rent more and more as well as getting repeat customers and finally, your home will be fully paying for itself (including expensive maintenance like repainting etc.
) and maybe even making you a profit and you'll have a second home for your use with no out-of-pocket expenses each year and when it eventually sells, you might just be able to sell it as a business and get more for it than if you just sold it as a property.