I’m also in the early stages of exploring real estate investment, and it’s been helpful to see how others incorporate different tax strategies and asset protection methods.

@Treza Edwards "I am reading the Rental Property Investing book and implementing the method that focuses on cash flow and that strategy states you need to have $300 cash flow per month, per property.

My method has always been to call every listing that hit 90 days on market in areas that I want to buy.

Depending on how the water is getting in, there may be cheaper methods for sealing the basement walls from inside.Keep shopping until you find someone trustworthy with solutions.I would also consider going after the first contractor because they robbed you.

What's the highest success percentage method to find a previous tenant's new address for this? 

I'm a local real estate broker, investor, and manager (100+ rentals, mostly Airbnb/STR and multifamily).House hacking is a tried-and-true method and in Sacramento you can produce some meaningful income while enjoying the appreciation and tax benefits of owning real estate.

It depends on where you want to live, income, personality, and other factors.You could buy a large home and rent out the individual rooms to cover expenses, but this comes with problems.

If you are open to non-traditional methods of financing, you could use a debt service loan to bypass that requirement.

Hard to fault her very methodical informed decision.

We've also advised this method to our investor clients that borrow from us.