Having lived in Southern California my whole life, I live in a bubble and am not aware of the flipping market outside of my backyard.

What I've heard through them is as follows: The student body has changed drastically over the last 10-15 years.

You might be better off not trying to house hack into a whole new house and either look for a duplex where you can rent half of it out or just look for a project house that you can get a DSCR loan on. 

This guarantor, who may be an individual or another entity, will be responsible for the difference between what is owed to the lender to make them whole and what has been recovered.If the lender makes the loan to an individual (natural person), this person is implicitly the guarantor via the note, and no separate guarantee is needed.

If you rent the basement room to someone or market the house as a whole counting the basement as a bedroom and a fire breaks out and someone dies or is injured in the basement without an appropriate egress from the room you could be liable for all of that.   

How quickly do you think you can achieve it?

You may have to sell the whole property to access the funds in the IRA or 401k when you retire and for required minimum distributions. 

Our goal is to start and grow our portfolio to achieve financial stability, more family time, the freedom to take vacations, and the ability to live life on our terms.

The whole thing took 20 minutes.

But as I mentioned, IMO you dont loose a whole lot by having it and stand a chance to gain for little extra cost.