If you have a regarded tax entity, e.g. partnership, S Corp, C Corp, you need complete financials -- P&L and balance sheet to adequately prepare the tax returns and answer tax related questions. 

• Investing in High-Cost Markets: The Bay Area is an expensive market, but we’re open to exploring out-of-state opportunities if they provide better returns.

There are no tax deductions for such gifts, however you have a $15k per recipient annual gift limit that avoids the chore of filing a gift tax return.

Logically we keep telling ourselves, we have the experience to easily make the transition but mentally there's a big difference when dealing with 100's of thousands of dollars on a single fam / duplex and millions of dollars on a 20+ unit property.

@Daniel Reed, cost of money is killing good returns these days. 

I built this budget template based on my research but am only seeing bad investment returns / don't really know what I'm doing and would appreciate any feedback you all have to offer.

Yes - you should be able to find some good DSCR Loan Options with 20% down easily - 15% down potentially available but the rates/requirements are pretty high on that front right now

If you want to scale using the BRRRR method I could send you a list of properties in terrible Philadelphia neighborhoods where you could easily complete the BRRRR and yes, you could theoretically "scale".

Quote from @Caliana Johnstone: Realized leasing to a new tenant can take 5-10 hours easily.

Complexity of return (many things such as # of states, # of properties, 1031 exchanges, etc)2.