Because some random stranger told you to do it?

As far as a lease, I recommend not just googling and downloading a random lease.

I think college students are a little less willing to rent a random room in a house with strangers.

And you can't know whether a specific property will lend itself to this without analyzing it - not every property in a random category is going to work.

It does seem like they’re close to randomly picking a price that after realtor fees leaves them with a small profit.

If I sold the first property for $140k (plausible over a random 10-year period),  I would have $140k and could then use that to acquire $450k worth of property (at 30% down).  

Hello @Taylor Gardner,You are going to get a lot of random advice with that question.I guess I'll join them all.$25,000 is a decent start, but focus on continuing to put money away towards future real estate purchases.House prices have likely recently peaked, and are starting a slow descent.Bottom line, it is no time to start an investing career in San Diego IMHO. 

(I'm in contract on an out-of-state property and expect I'll have to travel out there annually to deal with random stuff that comes up...but I don't actually know. 

Also ppl ignore mail and are suspicious of random calls especially if you (beginner) have no deal history, website, testimonials, credentials - it could be advantageous to show your face at someones door and a be personable human being not a salesmen when asking them to undervalue their property (never discuss price at first meeting) i.e smile, heres my card, I live next town over, nice dog, my mother’s name is also mary, etc. also why skip trace when you can just ask owner for their # for follow up. 

This is a win, and just like anything else in life random things happen and you have to deal with them.