At this point, instead of continuing to pay the interest loan payments on properties that we will never be able to financially finish since the rehab loans will not cover the actual cost of the rehab, I wanted to know the ramifications of returning the properties to the loan servicer, deed in lieu.

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.

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.

One of the constants that I still see from when I first started on BP in early 2016 is the willingness of experienced ( some on this very thread ) folks in different aspects of real estate to try and help newbies and others with advice and perspective.I think it really is a testament to the fact that even though the investing environment has undergone many changes over those years the willingness to continue to help others has not changed.It helped me tremendously when I had to crash course on small MF ownership and I am grateful to all who helped with posts that they didn't even know that I had read and learned from.And yes the search function remains fairly useless and unchanged in that regard since then to the detriment of us all.

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.

Continue to expand my bareland funding for land flippers .

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. 

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

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.