Holding onto a property merely for tax considerations is a dangerous gamble.

I could see spending the additional money and enjoying a tax deductible business trip every other year.

Why would you spend thousands of dollars and lose months and months of profit to do that?

There are better ways to spend your hard-earned money.

Bite the bullet and spend the money and use someone that specializes in the nuances and intricacies of evictions, especially in Commiefornia. 

@Nathan Meeker absolutely agree a good CPA is worth the $$, and was expecting to spend well over 1000 for such services (I spent 1500 last year only to catch a lot of my CPA's mistakes); just sent you a DM, thx

This is investing, not gambling.

DIL means you offer the lender the deed NOW instead of them spending time & money going through foreclosure process.Since time is money, lenders sometimes do this.

My coach says to move by the speed of instruction, but I'm not sure if my own market of Sacramento, California is worth spending a lot of time and money in, especially for rental properties.

Spend some money on tools and get your hands dirty.