For the first and maybe the first couple of properties, I wouldn't worry about QB.

A few recommendations - learn as much as you can from books, podcasts, and attending free or low-cost real estate investor meetups in your area (in-person is best).

You have a couple ways to access that equity.... you can 1031 your orange county property into a large multifamily and create cashflow that way.

I think this is generally a good post but, a couple of subjects warrant comment (opinion...which yes, I know how valuable anyone's opinion may or may not be).* In my world (Bank) a "Foreclosure" is a property/loan that has a filed notice (Often referred to as first legal) that a foreclosure has commenced and is somewhere in the foreclosure process between first legal and sale (or post sale redemption).

And BRRRR in general are hard to make pencil, primarily because rents in my market, while up, have not really grown as fast as overall property values, and the cost to finance is much higher relative to a couple years ago.

I spent about 8 hours capping and removing water and sewer lines and putting a couple of doors back in and some plugs in the wood floor and suddenly I had a 3br house.

It  depends on the scale of your portfolio but if you have a couple properties and they’re all straightforward, I think google drive is fine. 

I'd get quotes from a couple lenders and just go with the best one or the one you'd want to build a relationship with.

I'm also in Buffalo and have a couple properties that used to have additional structures on them.

I attended the hearing/meeting.Basically, he was able to prove that the property was a two family/duplex since the 1950's.