Using the Zillow process is pretty straight forward along with their lease creation (although i believe i'll use the legal service i have next time, i pay for it through work anyway). 

I have to know information about them to see where they are at in life for age, working for someone or owning a business, and what type of cycle (wealth creation, wealth stabilization, wealth preservation).So you can take what I say here in a general view and not a specific view.People not experts on the space can have a skewed view of what they believe.Retail not going from bad to worse.

I've heard management can be a bit challenging at times, but it sounds like you have a system that works well for you :-)  Do you prefer management over the investing aspect of real estate.As far as spending time with a real estate attorney for lease agreement creation, are there any websites that may have a generic template with which to present as a starting point? 

i do only buy and hold. strategies in sac are unfortunately mostly limited to equity creation with the hope of breaking even or maybe generating low yield on cash. 2 years ago you could get 7 cap on duplexes, same duplexes now are about 4 or 5 cap. too much money in california - a lot of that money is also spilling to other states now

Some money wants more risk but more equity pop, other money wants less risk, more stability, and happy with less equity pop.The difference is wealth creation vs. wealth preservation, and it's all cyclical.

Looking for a developer to JV on the creation of SFHs or townhomes.

Theoretically, if you are consistently doing good deals with high income and/or lots of equity creation your DTI and leverage will continue to fall! 

What is going to hit the hardest is when everyone realizes this was not inflation, creation of more currency units, it was consumer price increases.

So for the first 2.5 years you have made no headway in wealth creation in a normal appreciating market.  

I've seen areas where industrial development did lead to a brief spike in housing demand due to job creation, but often, the longer-term implications, especially for residential properties, weren't as positive.