@Alaska Wagoner Once upon a time I was renting in Tustin and got the idea to house hack a 3- or 4-unit property. I probably didn't expand my search enough geographically (limited myself to properties within a 30-minute commute of the Irvine Business Complex where I worked at the time), but I couldn't find anything that would meet the FHA self-sufficiency rule.
Fast forward to 2015, and I eventually found a 4-unit to house hack using FHA, all the way up in Santa Clarita. It ended up working out.
So I guess the morale of the story is if you're serious about house hacking using FHA, don't get your hopes too high in OC...you may have to be willing to expand your search radius significantly to find something that would work.
Oh and another thing. Don't waste time sending direct mail to fourplex owners in LA or OC. I probably spent about $2,000 on direct mail marketing to 4-unit owners in Southern California, and the few who called back were just fishing for a price. They all think they're sitting on gold mines (and this was in 2013)...and to be honest many of them are...
Anyway, I eventually just found the Santa Clarita 4-unit on the MLS.
Where direct mail does work in SoCal, however (or at least where it worked for me back in 2015...not sure the market now as I haven't bought anything in SoCal since then), was for older absentee SFR owners in the outskirts of SoCal...I had several people willing to sell me their properties at a deep discount (for cash and a quick close), but I only had the cash to buy one at the time.
