You've learned the hard way that gurus with their expensive courses are generally not needed to have success in real estate.

You could also look at selling the "paper lots" in advance of building out the infrastructure, but that depends on your financial ability to take this from dirt to finished product, and ultimately for holding long-term if that's the goal.

We have a beautiful 8 unit property that we've rehabbed and currently offer 3 units for short term rental on the second floor.

They are hard enough to do successfully local.  

I've done that before with good success.

I’m currently buying a 6 unit that will cash flow 5X the amount in a short time period compared to the garage conversion.

Reno offers diverse investment strategies, including flipping, medium-term rentals (MTR), short-term rentals (STR), and long-term rentals (LTR).

I purchased the property in 2017, I have completely renovated the one bedroom side, which is currently a furnished long-term rental.

Hard money and bridge loans are fast but better for short-term fixes, while commercial real estate loans are for bigger projects.

I think a good amount of STR and MTR investors are pivoting to long term rentals thus increasing the number of available units adding downward pressure on rent prices.