Find a local attorney.

From my experience, to succeed in multifamily investing, focus on networking through local meetups, online forums, and professional connections, leveraging your CPA skills to analyze deals and optimize deductions.

Can you locally house hack and do the room by room strategy? 

Currently flippers are much more active locally than buy and hold

A smart seller will have note, deed of trust/mortgage/etc. prepared by a local real estate attorney (yes, he/she may work with/at the title company) and be sure the security instrument is properly recorded in the land records. 

I'm a local real estate investor/agent, and I’d be happy to connect and chat more.

The numbers seem promising on paper, but I’m hoping to gather insights from locals or experienced investors who know the area well before moving forward.One thing that has caught my attention is the rental landscape.

Definitely worth checking out as local building owners and business owners meet up there to help build the community.

The local economy is not very good at the moment.

This is consistent with data from sources like Zillow, Redfin, and the local Santa Barbara Association of Realtors.However, when I go to "Pick Markets" and select Santa Barbara, the median home price listed is $620,000, which doesn’t align with what I’ve observed locally.