Shortly after they all became vacant, I had to do the renovation work myself because of the lack of cash flow, and it took years to dig myself out of that hole.

Say it is invested in a stock portfolio - now it is investment interest expense. 

I am also really interested in the stock market and the real estate industry! 

On the other, the prospect of short-selling the homes didnt look so awesome either.

Bought it as a safe bet thinking it would do roughly $35k annually in short term rents.

At that point in time, we can just list the property and sell it. we have long-term capital gains rather than short-term capital gains, we would have probably experienced some appreciation during that time.

@Shawn Questa I agree with you that there could be some opportunity here, but personally, with that little equity in the property, I'd wait for the pre-foreclosure process to start and  perhaps you can do a short sale (though I don't know the details on how that's handled in TX).

I’m currently exploring the Short-Term Rental (STR) market in Ft.

But neither do you, yet you started with:"Short answer is "yes"  - which I consider misleading.And you manipulated the OP's question to fit your agenda.

Q2 is most important: If the mortgaage is upside down, it would have to be an approved short sale and that could take a very long time to rectify.