And @Michael Plaks is correct that setting up in GA didn't avoid the CA LLC fee. 

Spend a year learning and going to meetups before you fork over a $50-$100k franchise fee and half of your profits and don't even know what you are doing.

I want to avoid being massacred by those fees if at all possible.

This dragged the process out even longer, making it both exhausting and expensive—I’ve already spent nearly $10,000 in legal fees.

One would also pay 10% ish fee to convert foreign currency to USD.

The best strategy I seem to have deployed so far was to contact all my current tenants and let them know I’d give them a cash referral fee of $250 for anyone they recommend to me that goes through the vetting process and successfully moves in.

I know broker fees are $500 so $12,500 in commission?

The entry fee is 8% the existing loan carries an interest rate of 4.125%.

They're better at collecting rent and charging late fees than most owners ever are. 

If the LLC and its income are entirely outside California, it typically does not require registration with the California Secretary of State (SOS) or payment of California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) fees, even if you reside in California.