I wanted to start out flipping houses but considering the current hot market and the fact that I live in Norway, I decided to pursue buy and hold investments (not eliminating the possibility of me doing flipping in the future).

This will trigger reassessment and eliminate your Prop 58 low tax basis, even if just one trust bene gets the loan.Your only true option is to either get what we can a fiduciary mortgage as successor trustee based on the equity (borrowing up to 50% LTV max) or live without a loan. 

The guide I read How to Rent your house - says that's a deal breaker so move on - so my questions is once there is a miss step from the guide is this the best way to eliminate potential renters or should I call this person and say hey your forgot to pay me the $25 so I can't run your background check? 

I would appreciate any input as I would like to learn as much as I can and eliminate as many mistakes as possible for a newbie.

I'm going to redo the deduction summary ... reducing or eliminating some of the items that could be wear/tear (closet bars/doors, etc).

That said, I am tempted to experiment what it's like actually living in another area, either to eliminate or to reinforce my preference for the east.

Everything that doesn't meet that criteria is eliminated.

Hi everyone, I will soon be moving to a duplex to 90% eliminate my monthly bills.

You can use a custodial account or if you wish to have more control special purpose LLC can be utilized to gain checkbook control and minimize custodian fees and eliminate their involvement in the investment. 

Our solution, which eliminated many of the stupid trips, is to personally plan 4-5 days to go down each year or so, inspect each property, and fix all the little stuff we can find.