.: With the laws that the CA legislation has passed, you could piss off a city inspector and there is nothing they can do about a safe unpermitted unit.Possibly/probably....but I think the point we are all making is - why take chances on losing time and money and stressing yourself out?

Overall, it was the most stressful investment I had.Coming to 2024, I decided to sell this property as I am done with this headache.

Keeping your options open while you settle in can help you avoid the stress of a hefty mortgage, and you'll still have the chance to build wealth in other ways.

So you may not NEED a lease signed for your primary residence already, especially since that's a lot of stress to find a new tenant and have a lease in place while you're under contract on another home.

within 5-30 minutes of 4 wedding venues and about 10 minutes from a military base that does training.

Although I've stressed the importance of reserves, he is comfortable with his system.

I'm stressing because I wasn't anticipating this and am not excited about the prospect of paying 2k more than I was expecting when my mortgage payments kick in next month.I'll be searching the forum for answers as well, but since I am kinda desperate at the moment, I thought I would go straight to the source for advice.

We fee like a conservative approach will let us go through the growing pains of better understanding real estate investing without the worry of being over leveraged to add to the stress while we are both still employed full time in our careers and do not plan on quitting our jobs to go fully into real estate. 

Quote from @Jay Hinrichs: I invested in a winery/wedding venue at the end of 2023 because I needed a quick tax strategy and couldn't find a property fast enough.  

If there's a hole, it may be a red flag.b) sensitivity analysis: I examine all the assumptions, and make sure I can live with the worst case scenarios.c) "Stall and see": if they are getting money over multiple years, and there is no penalty for investing later, I would usually wait so I get some real performance data, versus having to look at theoretical pro forma information.d) Recession stress test: I will not invest in anything, until I subject it to recession level stress and see if I can live with the result.