I'm considering the purchase of a large home and converting it into a 4 or 5plex for Senior Independent Living with some amenities.

More importantly... by paying yourself from your rental income, you are converting passive income into earned income, subject to Social Security and Medicare taxes.

Im interested in knowing the process on possibly converting existing garage/mechanic shop space into restaurant space.

Convert the lease to month to month.

Our occupancy fell so low that we converted the San Diego STRs to LTR in the school year and STR in the summer.  

And the garage feels oversized, so I'm thinking about the possibility of converting it into a 2-car garage and adding ~300sqft of living space as another bedroom and hallway that still connects the house to the garage, so that the new layout will be 2500sqft, 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom with a 600sqft 2-car garage.

I am not (yet) into commercial RE as I am just starting out BRRRR on my first property which God willing I plan to convert it to a duplex from the single-family that it is now. 

It goes from a 10-12 month interest only loan during construction period and automatically converts to a 30 year fixed conventional loan.

Highly desirable as a rental with the potential to convert the vacant lot to additional STR units.

I think I could convert the small garage into liveable space.