OOS investors run numbers, they look exceptionally good on paper, but what you have to deal with is hard to summarize in one sentence.

Jason summarized all the posts, the OG posters questions and made perfect answers, nothing more to add to that.

Can talk more about this in person at the meetup but for the benefit of others who stumble into this thread, I will summarize here as well. 

I don't know if the appraiser board had an issue with that (I would hope they would) but when they wrote the reprimand letters to the appraisers they summarized all the issues into 3 USPAP standard rules so, unfortunately, I'm not sure exactly on which issues the appraiser board agreed with me. 

Then, we provide clients with an Excel spreadsheet summarizing all the options.

A lot of tax planning books in my opinion are trash and really just summarize vs provide alternative transaction structures.Also Principles of Taxation for Business and Investment Planning is really good as well as by Sally Jones.Check out eBay you can get good deals there, also Amazon Prime has good free reads if you search.To be honest most books people recommend are good starting points but after awhile you continue studying and really question whether any of those tax strategies books offer anything of value.Obviously you can depreciate the building, but what about start-up and organizational fees, how do I get to 179 property eligible, when is it proper to group under 469, what is the safe harbor for 199A, how can I transfer use but delay taxation, gifting a property year by year to avoid a sale, etc.

I've found I can learn a lot more from reviewing actual deal docs and can learn to pick out the major business factors of the deal rather than relying on summarized info from a book.

Does anyone know of a resource that summarizes Bay Area rental regs by jurisdiction? 

Summarizing for others new to the thread.

Mike summarize it very well there.