The STR provides a much better return than the average return of our LTR's, but it requires considerably more effort and oversight.

We as a firm have investors working with us who have rental properties all over the US big and small.Finding a real estate-focused tax professional and one who can help with advisory and grow with you would be my suggestion to focus your efforts on finding.

It requires more effort but can significantly accelerate your portfolio growth.Down Payment Assistance Programs: If upfront cash is a concern, look into down payment assistance programs.

I would recommend looking at how much money you could make as a STR vs LTR & then deciding if it's worth the effort to do STR vs LTR. 

The saturation does give me concern, as it will be hard to make sure the property stands out from others when it is so far away from home without significant time and effort to keep up on theming, not to mention that you are at the mercy of your management company for some of the placement.With respect to rates, I have no delusions that the rates will come down, the refi is more a protectionary measure to make sure that we do not end up upside down on a mortgage if we just pick an arbitrary number and say, put 40% down on the property at 8%.

Stocks and syndication don't require much attention/effort, and self-storage requires much less than residential storage.

It seem like a good opportunity to get into real estate with others fronting the effort.  

This is especially true if they are purchasing the property with the already existing ADU (getting likely larger than usual ADU discount because of their often poor valuation in nice areas without the effort of adding the ADU).  

You will invest far more time and effort than you will be rewarded for from just this property.

We as a firm have investors working with us who have rental properties all over the US big and small.Finding a real estate-focused tax professional and one who can help with advisory and grow with you would be my suggestion to focus your efforts on finding.