was thinking of getting one and putting it on a small piece of land and renting it.

A lot  more than just the syndication piece.

If you're sending out mail, it should be hundreds or thousands of pieces. 

Assuming 25% down, that's a couple homes valued at $120k a piece that one could invest in.

I have seen developments around me that will buy up the large (100+ acres) of land to develop and instead of buying up the smaller pieces nearby, they simply build around them. 

I'm sending out 1,000 pieces per week for... well... ever! 

I suppose if you owned a property in an area with poor/no property management facilitators, and you wanted to turn your property into STR, there might be some value in letting someone else do it who can make more money than you can, but generally the pieces don't really fit together all that well.

We genuinely like each piece and have reasons to keep each in house.

This allows you to own a piece of property while also growing the value of the home. 

My best piece of advice would be to stay consistent try not to get too hung up on “deals” that aren’t deals!