PS I have heard of the struggles in the Springs market..

They end to struggle with it.

I'm struggling a bit on that comparing the passivity, appreciation, etc

On recent projects that I have seen, LTV’s north of 70% are struggling to pencil out on.

While it appears many rookie investors tend to struggle to hit the ground running due to lack of capital / financing, I have the opposite problem.

Quote from @Marcus Ball: After struggling with local rehab properties in California, I switched to build-to-rent developers and chose a 1031 exchange.

I'd add a late fee to the lease renewal, but if they are struggling to pay rent now, when the baby comes, they will be down one income for a bit and then have child care, so will likely have more problems. 

I think too many people get into this and struggle for too long before realizing that they not been properly trained and potentially could have dramatically shortened the learning curve.   

The issue there is the current prices and CA laws - for the past year I've been struggling to find a property that's somewhat turnkey and that would at least break even...

I am open to any advice and my current struggle is finding a duplex in my budget.