It repeals an important California rental housing law with no replacement and no plan to address affordable and middle-class housing or deal with the problem of increasing homelessness on our streets.

If you were ok with taking on additional debt (loans your tenants would pay down for you over time), you could potentially leverage that 475k into 10 or more cash flow properties (though there are limits on how many loans you can carry at once).Of course, there's always a middle ground too: sell the condo, use some of the money to increase your DP on the new house and use the rest for investing.

In all likely-hood you will loseYou can also take minimal risk and get very small returns like a CD paying 2%.The key is to find the sweet spot in the middle of those two with enough diversification to protect you from one bad decision.But back to your original question.

Literally by definition you cannot invest without having money. so I would suggest, as everyone else has, go make those cold calls, get dirty, or be okay with a slower paced investment process.

RE agent does the showings and basic screening. after basic screening - when I am doing my screening from applicants , I take my time to try to CHOOSE as WISE as I can , meaning I am looking for long time relationship , with a tenant, a person, it is a relationship like nay other . if you choose smart - you will have a long time tenant , with no MIDDLE MAN. 

Waiting for inherited tenants to naturally leave on their own would likely be very expensive and financially infeasible, but perhaps there is some middle ground between waiting and asking them to leave immediately. 

I wonder if there is a way to get those opposing forces to meet in the middle. 

@Alison P.I wouldn't get in the middle of the truck damage itself, but I would consider looking through your lease and sending a notice of violation.

I  am in the middle of opening a HELOC which should be approved for 10-15k (depending on the appraisal).

My assumption is that you would need your rental income to at least keep pace with the inflation as this will likely drive your expense percentage increase.