Bay Area rookie seeking house-hack guidance

[Parker Ludlow Imrie]

My wife and I live and work in the San Francisco Bay Area, have roots here, and plan to stay. (Great place for a rookie to cut his REI teeth, right?) We are about to sell our SFH (not a profitable rental), which should give us a decent chunk of cash to start with. In the meantime we're renting in Alameda--we intend this to be temporary, though the area is pretty ideal for us long-term. We've been looking at MFH house-hack options, which seems the most straightforward, but haven't ruled out other options. I don't expect to break even in this market--I'm okay with dramatically reducing net cost of living from our SFH PITI, allowing us to save more for the next investment, but I am also concerned about rent control and other local gotchas.

What should I know about Bay Area rent control? What other gotchas should I educate myself on? Are there other options worth looking into as a newbie? (Self-storage seems attractive too, or simply remote investing, but don't know if those are worth continuing to pay rent ourselves). Is STR house-hack a better bet for cash-flow?

Trying to avoid analysis paralysis but there are so many options and variables; I'm looking for some guidance.  Thanks in advance for any words of wisdom!