California offers great job markets and weather, but comes with high costs. 

As long as you focus on areas with strong job growth and analyze the deal carefully, I think you will be in great shape. 

They have other nice benefits also such as not charging for appraisals if the deal doesn’t close, a great reputation amongst local listing agents with meeting deadlines/ great customer service/ getting the job done with no b.s. and they can often close in under 14 days. 

Nice…You can’t offer less for a property full of fire rubble (lead and asbestos?)

But if your goal is to leave your day job soon, multi family will offer more cash flow typically.

Also, focus on 2 years of job/income stability.Class D Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, all cashflow with little, maybe even negative, relative rent & value appreciationVacancy Est: 20%+ should be used to cover nonpayment, evictions & damages.Tenant Pool: majority will have FICO scores under 560 (almost 30% probability of default), little to no good tradelines, lots of collections & chargeoffs, recent evictions.

I'm under contract for a nice double and was hoping to use part of the money for my portion of the down payment.

So, when we chat about different Neighborhoods and properties, we're on the same page.References are nice, but why would they not screen the references first, making them useless?

I had to remind them a few times of deadlines but they did a good job overall.

It is a nice cabin, but it will not produce good return.