Personally, if your market tends toward the former condition (better/normal appreciation) I think it's a fairly safe deal looking at the long term, assuming infrastructure around you continues to support the idea of renting it.

Continue to expand my bareland funding for land flippers .

Places like Texas where you’re at will likely continue to face significant insurance increases given more weather related events which makes it challenging To pencil, but if you have good population growth, things should even out.

At the numbers you are talking about and where the market is heading you could pick up some very high quality NNN national credit tenant properties as commercial continues to recover. 

I see 3-5 as a fad.Fractional ownership - way to much overhead for these to be profitable. think "timeshare".STR in non traditional markets - running a STR is a business and real estate, boils down to location location location - who would want to go to a conference and stay in a STR vs. the hotel where the conference is at, most businesses pay for this I do not see why.Mixed use with green - this has been going on for years- it will continue but it is also more expensive to build - which means higher costs to use.Not trying to be debbie downer, I have seen these attempted to be done in the past and they really have not been successful.I do really like the BTR model though as I continue to see that as a very good option in the future. 

The new buyer brought a new down payment that made me whole and then some, and despite the original buyer falling behind, I continued making the underlying payment on the mortgage with reserves from his original down payment.

I'll continue doing my diligence, using your posts as another guidepoint. 

Refinance after project, cashed out and continue to receive positive cash flow.

This is a great platform to network and to continue to learn.Best of luck on your real estate journey.

i would:-get the highest paying W2 job you can-save up enough to buy a house hack-house hackwhile you continue to learn and consider the other possibilities you mentioned.