As I always say, "price (budget), timing (speed to completion), and quality (craftsmanship)...pick two".

Keep in mind a RE bubble that was always going to burst that has been sped up by COVID, but higher price points and a trendy area should give you a high chance of quality candidates.

All the neighborhoods near lackland are prime for rentals because of the high quality tenants or airb&b due to the weekly graduations.For flips I think it's important to go after neighborhoods where other people are flipping.

So basically my only hope is to improve the interior/exterior quality if I want it appraised high enough to be able to pull my initial money out?

It's a great article with some quality analysis!

I would personally focus more on the quality of the asset.

There's bunch of trade offs but we invest in CA because it's close to home, high quality, high demand, and if anything goes wrong I don't have to hop on a plane to go see what's going on.

Floors were decent but poor quality laminate and not installed very well.

Oh, and cash reserves as well... tenant demand may be low and quality tenants may be hard to find if things continue to get worse. 

That capital basically becomes illiquid as long as the loan is outstanding, I'm not sure I see any advantage over cash.