Hi Stan, glad to have you as part of this community! 

Most investors from California that post stuff like this usually end up in the Midwest.

I'd recommend looking at costs. your build cost is going to be well over other homes because of the fixed costs like slab, Hvac, roof, etc. check the market drivers and weight the benefits of short term versus long term. long term is no furniture and help pays mortgage but at this size it doesn't really cover everything. we didn't find a lot of economies of scale in single family detached. can you build more than one unit?

I'm happy to help in any way that I can. 

There are surely STR Facebook groups for this location.

if you have no money to put down then you're not ready.here's what i would do instead:-save up enough until you have enough money to do a live-in flip-do a live-in fliphope that helps

This could result in a bad tenant and thousands of dollars lost via eviction.It's better to have a vacancy than a bad tenant.

I just got married this year in September.

The premiums didn’t make sense compared to the other options I found for the two properties I moved off this policy, nor did they align with the rates I have for other properties in my portfolio that are not on this policy.I’ve shopped this policy extensively across multiple companies and brokers.

This is probably the reason why the previous landlord sold with tenants in place.