Some people go to Lake Lewisville/Dallas/Grapevine, but I don't hear about them spending the night and there are pretty limited options right on the water.I still hear a few people going up to Broken Bow/Hochatown, but that talk is way way down since about 2021. 

This limited inventory will likely continue to drive prices upward.Sales - Median $/SF by MonthThe $/SF increased slightly MoM, bucking the seasonal trend.

With your skillset and limited finances, it might be great to be a small partner on a deal with another flipper or be some of the work on the deal so you can see how it feels time wise.

Financing is definitely an area that I will need more study.

As stated above, this limits your conventional loan options, and means your rate will be higher with either a Conventional Loan or DSCR loan once you do the refi! 

All that combined with limited building and no state income tax there is positive rent and appreciation. 

So if you are selling a property in a given year, it might be worthwhile to talk with your CPA and see if selling some stock at a loss would be helpful (since otherwise capital losses are limited to $3,000 as Joshua mentioned). 

We purchased a property in early October and are placing it in service this week (mid November).We had intended to run a cost segregation study and try to accelerate depreciation which we can deduct against our W2 (assuming material participation).However, we have been reading through the IRS guidelines (eg publication 946 on Property Depreciation) and there seems to be the concept of "short year" which would mean that we can only deduct ~1.5/12 of a year's worth of depreciation in 2024.Is this correct or are there any different rules for STRs specifically?

Night Before the Exam dot com is a good state study test if they have it for your state.To be clear though, the majority of what you learn in the class is not used by residential real estate agents in practice.

Passive investing takes time up front to educate yourself, find operators and deals - but after you invest, you have limited obligations.