Real estate investing has been a passion of mine for time with my mother also having invested early on where I likely have gotten the love and desire to follow similar foot steps.I have taken last 6 months to educate myself and currently own a single family home as primary residence and would like to expand to multi family properties (2-4 units) for additional stream of income, not to mention potential tax benefits for long-term investing.Based on current living situation, I have a fair amount of equity established in my primary residency along with having enough cash to either pay off house completely or use towards investing in a multi family property.Given that I'm the sole source of income for our household with my wife being the home maker for our two kids under 2, trying to weigh out risks with getting started now or perhaps waiting. 

As you know its near impossible to find a good cash flowing deal in CA due to sale price, taxes and lack of inventory.Last one I closed on was over off of Germantown Road it was a great 2 unit that needed a little TLC for $160K but passed an inspection and was livable.

Other advice, especially that pertaining to tax benefits, is also highly appreciated!

Note I strive to minimize cash flow because it gets taxed versus other RE return are easy to defer or avoid the taxes.  

And even here, you still need to be "active" to research who you are lending your $$ to, and due diligence on the deal itself prior to investing your money.

So when I'm reviewing screening reports for my rentals, I like to find out the story behind an eviction - I've had good tenants with evictions on their records who never bothered to expunge their eviction from the record when they had a prior vindictive landlord (yes, such landlords do exist and give the rest of us a bad name). 

Conversely, if new houses are being built frequently, older properties may struggle to maintain their value.Property taxes also play a significant role.

Finally, check with the Town to make sure there are no municipal liens, Make sure they're on Town sewer, check with the tax assessor to see how many bedrooms the tax office thinks there are, (important if you are flipping) buy ok to have more bedrooms if you are planning to buy and hold.  

Assuming the liens were the mortgage, taxes, hoa etc and totaled less than the purchase price.

You might even want to setup a C-Corp (for tax and liability reasons as well) to manage the business with the guests and pay rent to your LLC.