Depending on the country there also might be fire risk mitigations.

I think some of my reservation is that I have a team but you never real know someone until you are in the fire.

If your reading some "How To" that came out between '2010' and '2020', that's some good fire starter, and that's about it's value in this market cycle and odd's are the market cycle of the next decade or two. 

Reframed entire first floor to due previous fire.

. - some strategies I've seen California investors use to lessen negative cash flow: house hacking, mid-term rentals (people temporarily displaced from home renovation or insurance reasons like fire), rent by the room, Short Term Rentals. - The ultimate house hack, live in the small ADU unit and rent out the two levels of the main house on AirBnb in San Francisco (I would have thought STRs are oversaturated in S.F. but it worked for them and they stay fully booked).

Those three one caught my house on fire and I ended up evicting 2 Tenant.

I would say your first year is just for drinking from the fire hose, even if it means taking a larger split and not earning as much commission.

We are very much in the Growth phase of our financial journey but also have other irons in the fire.

California has seen huge uptick in home insurance, I'd imagine Santa Cruz has a high fire insurance

Where it gets interesting is that the house has 5 mailing addresses associated with it and the fire prevention bureau has on their records it is also a 5- unit house, and I am billed as such upon annual renewals/inspections.