But California also has pretty onerous land-use regulations that limit supply, and there’s been a lot less financial distress than people were expecting, with one of the lowest loan-to-value ratios on outstanding mortgages in the country.

If done the other way around, the terms of your preapproval will change.With residential financing, you cannot purchase directly into a LLC (unless you look at DSCR) but that still would limit you to the 5% down conventional.  

After he became completely paralyzed, I found myself wondering if we'd ever be able to use our own vacation home because it wasn't accessible for him and it made me realize just how limited and unwelcoming the world is for people with disabilities.

You may have a skill-set that could be helpful in partnering with someone in either long or shorter term projects, or if you have some funds, you could go completely passive and be a limited partner on a larger deal and let those who have the time and skills manage the project actively.More important is starting to network with local investors and get to know your market, your players and find out who is doing a good volume of work in the area you might be interested in- (multi-family long term holds, fix and flips, etc).

*Do we charge them rent and then gift that amount back to them (the FMR is well below annual gift limits) or can we gift them rent and still deduct expenses on our taxes?

I’ve tried to look up municipal codes online in regards to rent by the room and limits on unrelated people living in the same home and have had no luck.

However, from my understanding on this, it’s not a public database like a Secretary of State site, but rather only available to limited parties.

I have seen a Heloc lower an investors scores due to excessive tradelines and due to the balance to credit limit percentage.

@John McKee, I have no direct experience with this scenario, but here are some thoughts:First, drive thru's are limited to banks (and even these seem to be disappearing) and restaurants.  

Also, in many cases you must work off of an approved vendor list which means basic repairs can be more costly since you are limited in who you can select.