22 year old newbie looking to house hack in Southern California.

[Mario Flores]

I am 22 years of age and recently started reading the book on rental property investing which brought me to this forum. I am looking to house hack in the near future and in my area (Ontario, CA) the homes start at about $400,000 the lowest for a single family home. Ideally I would like to purchase a Duplex or Triplex which run even higher at about $600,000. If I could get a deal of purchasing a duplex for 80% of what is worth which would be $480,000. Lets just say I got a duplex and got it down to $400,000 with down payment. My Monthly Mortgage payments would be around $2,000 with a 4.5% interest rate. Monthly income would be about 1,500 per unit. According to the 50% Rule to quickly analyze a property: Cash Flow=(Income x .5)-Mortgage p&i. In this case it would be (3,000 x .5) - 2,000 = -500. Negative -$500 would be my cash flow, in other words this house is to expensive and not a good investment. Now my questions is if I’m doing the correct math and thinking the right way???? And also for those who have experience investing in SoCal. Would I be better off moving further out to less populated areas???