I'm trying to teach myself to stomach the risk more, and make the moves I know I should have made in the past.  

You have to do whatever you can stomach    

Consider that many of your fellow students have parents who own or run businesses that might hire you.I couldn't stomach working for an architectural firm -- way more time reading specs, arguing with stingy owners, fighting with zoning, answering RFI's, butt covering, and copy-pasting than actual design work. 

With the number of unsafe units in this condition, it would present a tremendous challenge as a manager to improve and maintain such properties, and deal with the associated tenants, and a pretty strong stomach.  

Its all how much risk you can stomach friend.

If you can stomach unexpected expenses or higher turn over/ vacancies you certainly can make good money by investing in lower end properties, but it also turns newbies off quickly when the expenses are typically more than estimated.  

After this high season is over, I have a feeling that there is going to possibly be a wave of STR owners selling their properties because they don't have the stomach for the slow season or are simply financially unable to push through it.Regarding medium term rentals, in the high desert there isn't too much demand for them and is more of a low desert thing.

I've got a checkbox for crazies like her, but alas, money is money (if you've got the stomach for dealing with garage sale of society).

If you can't/won't do this, or can't/won't stomach the (often harsh) rejections and slurs against your integrity, then save your money and try another method. 

They are crazy and overfunded so they can come up with whatever crazy arguments they have the stomach to make but they don’t have a winning argument.