That experience made me realize I want to dive deeper into this space.Right now, I’m in the research phase—figuring out locations, property types, and strategies while working on funding and budgeting.

Is this still a good investment strategies and what should I expect? 

If you're looking at buying a rental or house hack in the Triangle, then you should consider short term rentals.  Why? because we have a strong demand for them and great str laws.The Triangle is visited year-round by ...

My idea to achieve this is to convert the studio into a short-term rental.I’m trying to determine if I’m forcing this deal to work by relying on the short-term rental strategy or if it’s a reasonable approach given the numbers.

Are you focusing on long-term rentals, or are you still exploring different investment strategies?

Well worth it and the best strategy to start in my opinion. 

With the right strategy, it can become the foundation for building wealth.

Sounds like strategy call would make most sense to see what your goals are with REI and being an agent to determine if the organization I represent aligns with the direction you are looking to go. 

Imagine making millions of dollars over the course of your career and then having to pay 30-50% every year to uncle sam instead of compounding that cash over time.This is exactly what real estate professionals have learned to mitigate.To reduce their taxable income, they just buy a building every year, do a cost seg, and use depreciation to reduce their tax liability dramatically.Their personal wealth snowball grows much larger and much faster than their W2 counterparts who give most of their money back to the government each year.Following this strategy as a real estate professional is one of best ways to end up with a much larger net worth at the end of your career.

Ideally, I would like to use the buy and hold strategy, with a 50k budget to get started.