Too many low income apartment buildings near by / vacant buildings. 

If you can’t do a 1031 to a non-income tax state, figure out a year when you will have lower income and tax rates ar as low as possible.

The thing that would deter me from this location is a background rate of appreciation of 3.12% and low school ratings.

The instruments needed for the transaction will be state specific which means you should have someone from California chime in with resources who can provide low cost documents (as these will be boiler plate).

At this time I manage and renovate majority of all my units to keep cost low but most likely not the best use of my time although I'm skilled at it.

I see HELOCs as low as 7.5%, so the difference is not that significant.

Seems too low to be real.

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We have done a ton of research about phoenix and it seems like a good area as the unemployment rate is low and population is increasing.

Then definitely get a quality PM and rent it out for a bit.