@Clifford Pereira You can claim Real Estate Professional (REP) status on federal taxes but not in California, as the state does not recognize REP benefits.

Due to the DTI, DSCR loans are welcome.I am also open to any professional meetups or discussing any deals that may help us both.

Everyone has said, "go talk to a professional," because that’s the only real advice any professional on BP can give. 

Hello,I'm Dana Grant.I own a bookkeeping company, DG Bookkeeping LLC with a focus on real estate professionals and construction company owner.

I can see an explicit exception in CA Tax Code § 17561 that says you can not use the qualifications in Section 469(c)(7) (Real estate professional) to render that income as non-passive, but I see no callout for 1.469-1T and, as such - as a non-CPA - I do not (yet) see a reason why we cannot follow the same rules for CA that we do for our federal taxes; e.g., if the business is not a "rental" business per tax code, we count that income as non-passive and offset other income (W2, etc) similarly.Does anybody else have some guidance (or opinions) on this matter?

Did you work with any real estate professionals (agents, lenders, etc.) that you'd recommend to others?

I figured DC would be a great area to invest in because it attracts tons of young professionals.

Readers should seek professional advice.

Want to say a general and huge Thank you to these forums, even before being a "professional" of the industry, this was somewhere I enjoyed posting and meeting people when I had my W2, and continues to be the "benchmark" in the industry for me. 

I had the lead paint professionally encapsulated so lead poisoning and litigation related to lead poisoning should not an issue.