Day traders are not exempt unless they elect mark-to-market (MTM) accounting, which eliminates wash sale tracking but taxes gains as ordinary income.To manage taxes, track trades closely, avoid overlapping purchases, or consider MTM election if trading actively.

For context, downtown Alexandria performs super well as a rental market and bringing in $5.5k+ as the monthly rental income if you choose to move out of the househack in the future will be absolutely feasible (depending on the property of course).

Purchased a property that needed some work and on the lower end of the market so homes were sitting.

And the rental market is pretty stable.

I've done pretty well as a relatively novice investor in the stock market, just investing in S&P 500 tracking index funds.

The fact is that the real estate market is slow and likely will be until 2027 (Trump said he wants to keep rates where they are at through 2026).

You can always build in a small extra fee for a realtor if its an off market property.

From the little I know of San Antonio (I am a wholesaler who specializing in selling STRs nationwide) its not a super hot Airbnb market but the amount you expect for rent sounds pretty conservative. 

They determine this based on a % of Fair Market Rent (FMR).

Since you are new to the market, you can look at what the top rent pulls look like and cater accordingly on the design.You always want to build relationships with contractors, but that takes time and you always need a solid bench, just like in basketball because some days your starting plumber just doesn't show up and you need to bring in the backup.The rates are the rates and they aren't going way down soon so it's just part of a different metric to evaluate in your new market.Good luck!