Any advise for a semi newbie.  

I don't know what you do for a living, but with that kind of capital, you may want to think about full-time investing for the next few years, whether it's hard assets, paper, etc, then semi-retire when the money starts flowing. 

Ultimately when I no longer want to be a Realtor and also manage my individual California properties (semi-retire), will hopefully have a large chunk of equity to 1031 into larger multifamily somewhere.Or style?  

Ultimately, we want to "semi" retire in the Clearwater area in 5-10 years (hopefully) so we thought one option is to purchase some rentals there now so that when we do move we will have local investments that we can manage ourselves.  

I am not sure what soft/hard money is--semi-soft?

Also, you would not be painting the room with a flat paint, maybe a satin or semi-gloss, and hiding imperfections on reworked walls with a higher gloss paint is always a challenge.

A local or semi-local mentor would be ideal but I'm open to someone not so local as well. 

I am meeting with him and his family tomorrow as apart of my semi-annual inspection process.

This is inspiring from someone semi local2.

If you are talking a single {semi}detached home or duplex, then unless you are right on the edge of the City core (say NDG), 650K sounds steep.