Put yourself in the shoes of the landlord and imagine how it would feel if you discovered that your property was an STR and the person that you thought you were leasing it to was not there. 

I was in your shoes just a few years ago!

I think their business model relies on showcasing successful exits during good times (everyone is a genius in a bull market) to ensure that there is no shortage of sucker LPs. 

If you were in my shoes being 20 years old with this amount of savings, what would your plan in REI be for the next couple years ?

If I were in your shoes... 1.

There are likely more questions I have and more clarity I can provide if you have questions for me, so I wanted to make my first post something thorough that would hopefully gather some experienced eyes and maybe even resonate with others who are in my shoes in the same or other markets.

This is just an idea and a snapshot of how I would approach the issue if I were in your shoes.  

You're already doing a great job by putting yourself in your investors shoes.

So, I think if I were in your shoes, I'd save up money to invest, work on repairing your credit, and most importantly identify and fix the root cause of what got you into bad credit in the first place (you'll need to be real honest with yourself for this).

I have known others in your same shoes to go the NNN route when they fully retire.