Trying to learn the ins and outs of this business before i pull the trigger.I might just say fu*k it and just buy another house in the desert as a LTR....

Texas is one of the few places that still builds starter homes, you can't even really find them here in CA, the cost to break ground is too prohibitively expensive.While SA corridor is no desert, it's certainly not constrained by space or forest or old service lines like a New England or urban CA city.Relative to many places, Texas has abundant cheap land, which is still desirable unlike abundant cheap land in Mississippi, for example.

There are certainly markets in CA that have lower price points, for example, Bakersfield, Fresno, Antelope valley, & other desert cities) however, you typically lag behind the average on appreciation and you are typically in not as nice of neighborhoods to obtain cash flow.The part of your statement above that I disagree with is that you believe paying $200k for a home and getting $1600 in rent equates to great cash flow.

I have come across a few deals in Desert Hot Springs over the last couple years that I wish I would have held on to instead of wholesale because they would have cash flowed really well.For the vast majority, the So Cal rental game is an appreciation play, not cash flow.

Desert mountain realty Sonja Almberg and Kenna Almberg were very helpful.

Next hurdle you face here is location - do you have a plot you can place this on out in the desert where you have clear starry nights? 

I have explored investing in Palm Desert, Phoenix, Las Vegas, etc. - but I see way more risk out of the SD market, then within our market which has strong fundamentals for buy and hold investors. 

My past sins as the world's worst landlord begin to vanish like a desert mirage. 

Do you know of any contractors in the Palm Desert area?

You would think there so much land in Las Vegas, since it's a desert, that until you research, most of land is in federal government ownership.