Some of our family live in Sunset Cliffs and Point Loma, and have had rentals in those areas as well as OB for years.
If you choose the vacation rental route, you’ll probably do very well. That said, most in the family (including myself) prefer leasing to long-term tenants so we don’t have the ongoing demands and issues short-term rentals require, and things are pretty much functional on autopilot.
You could always try short-term for a summer, and see how it goes, then revert to long-term in the future, if you find you don’t care for it. Just my opinions, and not intended as advice.
BTW, congrats on your purchase. As we all know, beach rentals can be “gold.”
