You need to look at your market and look at what the comps with same style pool are getting in that market compares to those without.

FOLLOW THE K.I.S.S method plan (keep it simple and stupid).Find and hire a real estate agent that understands multiple investment strategiesGet pre-approved - see what options you havebased on your pre approved price - identify an area you want to invest in that you can affordLeverage the agent to : bring you properties, assist in pulling comparables (you should know your comparables of the area you are looking in, this is for a second opinion) review and confirm your estimated rental income, assist you with acquiring the property, and have a list of resources you could use; contractors etc.Looks at properties and make offers that work for YOU.Also,Do not pull your IRA money out, leave it there and let it grow - leverage this to meet your lenders reserve requirements.Buy Multi family to holdBuy single family to fix and flip and produce more income to buy more multi families.

We don’t know any PMCs to recommend in the area mentioned, but since selecting the wrong PMC is usually more harmful than selecting a bad tenant, you might want to read our series about “How to Screen a PMC Better than a Tenant”:https://www.biggerpockets.com/member-blogs/3094/91877-how-to-screen-a-pmc-better-than-a-tenant-part-1-services-and-processesWe recommend you get management contracts from several PMCs and compare the services they cover and, more importantly, what they each DO NOT cover.

As for financing, you may want to look at a couple of different lenders to compare.

How does that compare with flipping? 

I want to form an LLC for it to protect myself, and have been reading about how California residents have very specific laws compared to other states.

. $10k in losses will reduce the federal tax due by $1.5-2k.However, the state tax due gets lowered by a very small amount by using passive losses to offset passive income as I assume state tax rate is quite low (I live in TX, so never worried about state tax) compared to long-term capital gains rate of 15-20%.

Those algorithms compare homes based on general location, size, # of beds/baths, age, etc.

It's a higher priced rent but very desired location, updated, and compares favorably to others listed in the area --- and still priced competitively.

Compared to traditional, I think the latter is only the risk.