I'm a local real estate broker, investor, and manager (100+ rentals, mostly Airbnb/STR and multifamily).House hacking is a tried-and-true method and in Sacramento you can produce some meaningful income while enjoying the appreciation and tax benefits of owning real estate.

Quote from @Paul Lucenti: Creative methods tend to increase risk.

This depends on if you are using the Cash or Accrual method of accounting for tax purposes.

For all methods you would want to find a market that has strong employment rates, strong income rates for the market, and is a growing or an established market. 

HOWEVER; if you aren't going to use your full last name, then it's important to upload a pic to your profile (which you have) The reason being, when someone has a common name, with an initial and you are trying to @mention them, if you have a list of 5 David R's with the stock icon, it's impossible to know which is the correct one. 

So whichever way the law allows is the correct way.

You are correct about that, but that's usually a computation and decision that an investor makes after a couple single-family homes or small multis.

The OP could use it as a template and change it to 30 days and reference the correct county law, or no county at all.

I think a heloc is a solid method to fund a flip.

Structuring Financing for Volume-Based InvestingTraditional financing methods like hard money loans work well for single properties but can be less efficient when you're scaling up.