Also, there are also a lot of new apartment complexes geared towards students (free wi-fi, shuttle transportation to campus, etc).This seems to be pushing the SFRs in two directions: high-end and low-end, with not much in the middle.

Many high-volume REO LA's don't work with buyers, as they don't have time to run around showing houses to investors, so they shuttle them off to a buyer's agent in their office.

I sat next to a lawyer on a shuttle from the racetrack who explained some of the debates between the City leadership and the State Government / State police.

She still jumps on the Intel shuttle to go to the Bay Area or other campus's from time to time.    

@Kyle Marsh - definitely don’t underwrite for a room by room student rental if you’re not within walking distance of campus (or a student housing apartment community with free bus shuttle to campus).

I want to ensure that I have ample capital to buy my property in May (via FHA) + rehab it but I'm worried that I may be overspending on this.Sidenote: I initially considered buying a car that was big enough to accommodate for rehab projects that may require me to shuttle things that are too big for a sedan +  just regular errands.

Assumption that the approx $4800 mortgage will be covered (my 2 units @ $2400 + $3200 rents = $5600)Cons:  Living with tenants, neighborhood won't be as good as current place [Covina], we can shuttle the kids back to their current school district if we don't like the apartment school district, quality of neighborhood will drop 40-50%, wife prefers privacy. 

Besides the occasional stencil art on the pavement, another favorite was during the Google bus/tech shuttle protests a few years ago (they were protesting how tech shuttles quickly gentrified neighborhoods and put upward pressure on rents)- so at a protest in the Mission district they unfurled a huge piñata in the shape of a Google bus and started beating on it.

I tried to do that for a single toilet and plumbers acted like they are signing the blueprints for the space shuttle...

You can imagine a space shuttle engineer saying "ignite all rockets" and then one rocket doesn't go off -- uh oh.