Ideally we lite to get either 2 or 3 BR 2 BA single level homes with mostly brick or stone (Low maintenance being to goal hear).   

Look in to a platform like Hemlane, Avail, or RenRedi to collect rent, screen tenants and handle maintenance. 

You paid $2m for it two years ago w/ 25% down (it was suffering from mismanagement and deferred maintenance), invested $325k in capital improvements, and it's now valued at $3m with an NOI of $195k (cap rate assuming $3m value is 6.5%).

I understand that with SFRs, my rent, maintenance, and taxes will be more but that is all factored in.My reservations with the SFRs are rising insurance and property taxes.

Do you recommend self managing in PS (or even Indio) where tenants may be a little more high maintenance:) I ask because PM fees can be anywhere from 20-30% and will deplete any cash flow we may generate. 

It sounds like the inspector found quite a bit of "delayed maintenance" in the one unit...that usually means the whole building has much maintenance that has been postponed...again, ask your agent if the deal is worth the risk in their opinion (and why) to get the really good location.Let us know what you decide, and how it turns out. 

So someone can just stop paying taxes and create a funding gap for our public schools, firefighters, and county road maintenance and now private investors & Counties are going to bankroll the cost and administrative overhead to sell their property at auction and give them back the net auction proceeds?

I could buy a house for $450,000 with a mortgage of $3,000 plus taxes, insurance, and maintenance.

I could lower the price, but need to make $4200 to break even after 8% vacancy, maintenance 5%,  5% cap ex, monthly utilities, etc.

I can't speak on the capex for maintenance, but for cooling it has been great with no issues, we'll see how it holds up over the winter.True, your window units are always going to be most common here when there is no central cooling.