Since flipping income is considered active income, it combines with your W2 earnings and can push you into a higher tax bracket, so it's important to set aside funds for both the increase in income tax and self-employment taxes. 

Long term rentals are unattractive in CA imo especially since you can earn a lot more with different rental strategies even doing mid term rentals will still probably be more profitable than doing a long term rental.As far as hiring a contractor or bringing in subs for each item that will come down to how much you want to be involved, you'll save money finding and subbing out individual jobs but it will take you longer and you will need to manage everyone you hire and contract to do business with whereas a contractor will manage all that for you but there will be a premium put onto the price obviously for that. 

I'm hoping some of these EXPENSES will reduce my taxable income for 2024.I know there are rebates and TAX CREDITS for investing in Solar Panels.

It did significantly affect their reduce GDP growth during the Victorian age. 

My intention was to minimize my reported taxable income after taking expenses against the earnings through the LLC.

I can't even count how many times I have seen posts on Biggerpockets from struggling investors trying to rent out Section 8 properties or D class properties out of state.Everyday there is a new post from a Newbie Investor who put their hard earned cash into a dud of an investment and cannot figure out why they can't find a solid tenant, why their tenants don't pay, or some other horror story related to investing out of state/D class real estate. 

I would like to have an active earning real estate job so that I can fund buying rental properties.

That means you can earn an infinite rate of return because you'll be using 100% Financing.

Since you're not working, you may qualify for REPS, but you need to meet the750-hour requirement and materially participate in your properties.The $300k withdrawal will be taxed as ordinary income, so using cost segregation to create depreciation losses could help reduce your taxable income.

If you have commercial experience and are an excellent asset manager (managing the property manager, driving revenue, reducing expenses,  managing GCs)You wont just provide value to a sponsorYou will be highly sought-after after by sponsorship groups.The ones worth their salt know how incredibly valuable a strong asset manager is (and how much work it takes)So if you can bring that skillset, I have a feeling it won't take long for you to find a sponsorship team.