I hired Jenny Yi to design our latest STR in person, she demanded that I pay the full amount of her services upfront, $7,500, which I thought was strange as we are used to paying half upfront and half once it's completed, but proceeded anyway because a couple of people recommended her.

House HackAttend as many REI meetups as you can to grow your network of investors for referrals, help through challenges you may incur but don't have experience with, and learn from proven guest speakersNetworking app like blinq to compile all of your contacts for REI in one area with phone and emailbegin conversations with local credit unions exploring what type of loan products they offer

How could I determine how much demand there is?

I could keep it and rent it, rents are good and in high demand but just looking for a different property type. 

Imagine me asking my attorney for $35K worth of free court appearance /advise or a real estate agent to forgo the 6% fees on selling of a home or demanding my property manager give me 20 years of free property management or going to Best Buy every week and coming out with a cart full of electronics good without paying, etc.

You can grow that account to what ever you are comfortable with.  

It really depends on market demand and location.

My goal is to build a data-driven tool that provides actionable insights into which neighborhoods and property types are in the highest demand, based on metrics like:Time on market: How quickly rentals are being leased.Property characteristics: Bedrooms, bathrooms, size, and amenities.Pricing trends: Rental rates relative to market demand and property features.Visual quality: Leveraging property photos to analyze the style and condition of rentals that perform well.The tool will allow users to:Pinpoint areas with the fastest rental turnovers.Understand what types of properties (size, price range, features) rent the quickest.Gain deeper insights into property presentation and amenities that correlate with high demand.Thank you in advance for your feedback.

Also, grow your contractor lists, maybe make posts about their work.  

Atlanta MSA is great and growing, but Multi-Family supply coming on line there both now and through next year is significant, wouldn't this be a better/cheaper deal 1 year from now?