Doesn't this hurt the tenants trying to move to a better location or larger home for their family? 

@John SteffenInvesting in house hacking or purchasing a primary residence for rental can be challenging due to affordability, vacancy fear, high interest rates, maintenance concerns, and location analysis.

If you want to form an LLC in the state in which the property is located, that's fine but single member is all you need.

Vet property managers well; income can vary greatly in the same location due to the quality of the property management.

Lower risk and much greater opportunity to scale while keeping within a relatively small geographic area.

Climate rankings for all 48 states from Policygenius**:https://infogram.com/best-and-worst-states-for-climate-change-1hd12yx3orgyx6kCensus Bureau migration data*:https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/geographic-mobility/state-to-state-migration.htmlZillow press release on adding climate data: https://zillow.mediaroom.com/2024-09-26-Zillow-introduces-First-Streets-comprehensive-climate-risk-data-on-for-sale-listings-across-the-US

We're located in Great Barrington, MA and we are rookies getting into REI.  

Two of the rentals are located in the mountains where it snows and have large decks, they are very high maintenance so I’d like to get out of those if possible.In the three SoCal houses total I’m now looking at 703k equity (Split among the houses- 162k, 204k and 336k).

Seam sealer can be used to help keep the gaps tight in problem locations.  

@Beruk LessaneworkRecommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a Class A property in Class D area, what quality of tenant will you get?