If the numbers are as indicated, it would cash flow, but does anyone know if this area is worth buying in?

The home inspection report indicates the roof and hot water heater are at or near end of life.

its why lenders run CREDIT and TITLE search Credit will get anything that is on their fico and lien search anything recorded in the county that the subject property or the person wants to buy in.. they can slip through though I am sure.. but then the judgement creditor needs to go to the county were the debtor bought and then file their judgement as a foreign judgement but at that point they are second to the new loan put on ... not a senior. although I think the term rental on your LLC would give other landlords pulling credit a clear indication that the debtor skipped on rent and could not BS there way through it... lending is tough right now anyway.. those type of folks basically don't get loans.. unless lender RMLO wants to try to monkey the credit which some don't have anything better to do and will do that.  

One potential partner, has built 100 doors over the last year, a number of which were slot homes - were pretty consistently running $175/sqft hard and soft cost, but not including financing; they indicated with financing worked in, they averaged $200/sqft all in.

You did not indicate if you plan to continue to live in CA. 

Banks decline people who have erratic income, huge swings that indicate their business is unstable.

You could value this 3 different ways:1) Income approach2) Comps3) Replacement valueIn the income approach we generally look at lot rents only as I indicated above. 

The positives:Usually self detects trips.Can request excel compatible reports.Includes a notes fieldProvides capability to manually start a trip.has a category selection that allows easily categorizing business versus personal.has a means to connect 2 trips into one which could be desired if it thinks there is separate trips such as could happen for a lunch stop.Negatives:When they started they indicated that it would be free forever and then they started charging. 

I would send them a statement indicating the rental fee from the 28th indicating a rent rebate for those days and 1 day rebate for the 30th.

It might help you sell the house since you can indicate that it has been upgraded.I would do what is necessary but not go overboard.If you have galvanized, replacing the water line from the street to the house makes a hug improvement on water pressure as galvanized will rust and restrict the flow of water over time.I believable you just need to have working plumbing with good water pressure for the appraisal.I would be more worried about plumbing issues or old piping showing up on a buyers inspection than it affecting an appraisal.