Measuring household formation and permits are interesting but that data becomes far more powerful alongside other metrics such as housing inventory as @Aaron Gordy mentioned.  

I mostly chose the career path of CS in order grow capital for my real estate investing faster, and I'm very happy with that decision.I think tech is an amazing field to work in alongside real estate investing; find a company that respects your life outside of work, and remote or hybrid work helps with cutting out commute time!

So as you can see we are having a huge supply problem for new homes along side the cost sky rocketing and that would be here regardless of STRs.

@Lance Friesz Hi Lance I'm a broker in Paso and have a handful of investor clients I work alongside on their Airbnb's out here while they live in the Bay Area.

Given that by focusing more on my own properties I am going to be virtually eliminating paying work from clients that I would otherwise be doing, should I figure in a wage for myself alongside the wage that I pay my employees when deciding how much money to borrow?

If someone offers cash alongside your financed offer for the same price and you just have higher EM, you're likely still going to lose that battle.

@Alicia Marks I have narrowed down to Single Family for now because I have worked alongside some realtors who dealt with SFRs so I have a good idea about it.

I haven't done a lot of work with HELOC but I work alongside @Corby Goade who uses them all the time to take out money to invest into other properties.

Given that I am 24, with no prior experience in real-estate and no family to help me, this was a huge project to undertake (alongside a very demanding job). 

A full 200 page PDF with all details down to the species of trees that would go in alongside the homes.