The house will continue to be an excellent investment.  

There's no one size fits all approach to real estate investing and depending on your resources, skill set, and capabilities you may excel in one particular market or utilizing a specific strategy whereas another investor will excel using a different approach.  

My experience was excellent both projects were completed successfully, on time, and delivered solid returns.

I would definitely pull up Excel and do some of your own calculations to figure out how things will look.

I know the equity growth on it longterm will be excellent for what and where it is, but I can't buy just for equity right now, it needs to at least carry itself.

Find one that can be custom to your needs, has flexible pricing, no long-term, high-cost memberships, and excellent customer services to determine how to best market to your leads.

I expect there to be excellent deals to be had in our market for those with the ability to buy.

Personally, Id hire someone who will either straight up guarantee or all but guarantee you'll pass if they do the work.

I want a syndicator that is hungry to make his money by operating the deal with excellence, not getting paid up-front.Exactly.

If you need a referral to an excellent agent who works exclusively with STRs in that specific market, I can refer ours  I'm an agent, but yes I am in contact w/ one out there familiar w/ STRs. thanks for asking.