I know this is hindsight but when ever you lend money you should get a Lenders title policy and give escrow instructions to the title company that your loan is to be in first position.

To be honest, I´m in the Maintenance & Construction for corporate businesses for some US companies in Mexico and we do some Real Estate down here also, but it´s way much different than the US, so I have much to learn from a lot of people around here and as @Julio Gonzalez, I think this is pretty much the right pad and place to start and to break my fears to start all over again from scratchAlso, I´ld like to hear more from @Justin Brickman why he voted for his city, pros and cons, it will help to read from a local...As I said before, thank you all guys for taking the time to write in this post and share some experienceDo you plan to owner occupy. $40k will not get you a non owner occupied San Diego property unless you find some unlikely alternate financing.

If you're not conducting the work yourself, contract with reputable and competent companies.

If you are interested, I can give you some names of companies that can help.  

Alimentation Couche-Tard, the parent company of Circle K, has made an unsolicited offer to acquire Seven & I Holdings, the owner of 7-Eleven.

My company accepted a tenant with a horrific credit score because we heard her story.

I recently moved back to the U.S. after almost two decades working in international development and entrepreneurship across the African continent, from co-founding a tech-enabled logistics company in Ghana to negotiating public-private partnerships for infrastructure investments in Senegal.

@Charles GranjaWhile you certainly make valid points, I’ve come to realize that this unscrupulous company is quite devious, and getting things transferred from them could be a challenge.

Thank you so much for your insights, I already have a company in mind but if things go south you may hear from me sooner than not.  

so that's the trade off.hope that helps - just giving you some things to think about.