I'm also thinking of turning a room downstairs into a bedroom with a simple wall.The TH is actually across from UCSD, not SDSU.  

Use your 5k and find a decent 1-bedroom condo and put it on AirBNB. 

The one in Naples took a 4 bedroom, and divided it up to 4 Airbnb units. 

Both bathrooms need a complete remodel as well as the kitchen, the ceiling in 2 of the bed rooms are bowed (previous roof leak that was fixed) so new ceiling drywall, appliances, flooring, and paint throughout.

This market has a lot of large families and therefore 5-6 bedroom rentals are in demand and tough to find.

If you know of a college that you plan to go to, a single family house, duplex, triplex, or fourplex on the campus would be a great way to start out while you live in one of the units and manage/make sure to get all of the other units/bedrooms filled with other students about your age.

From what I’ve read on BP, the city of Alexandria seems to be friendly towards STRsI would then also potentially rent out one of the upstairs bedrooms as a MTR or LTR.

I would purchase a duplex (or even better, purchase a SFH with as many bedrooms as you can afford and rent by the room), and then slowly improve the property. 

Where I’m working now has been through 3 dishwashers in the past 12 months (8 bedrooms).

This is a 4-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom single family house.