You don't need to know everything to get started; you need a foundation to build on, and the rest will come through experience and then refining your education.You can build a basic understanding of investing in 3-6 months.

My goal is to live in the home during the winters, maybe 3-4 additional weeks for vacation, then rent it out to help cover the mortgage the rest of the year.  

I only have enough funds for a 20-25% downpayment and was looking to do a DSCR loan to cover the rest.

This leads to state funded insurance which will be very costly because only those at highest risk will participate in it and if the losses continue, they eventually will need to get the money from someone (rest of people in california?) 

When a rental is taken out of service for personal use the accumulated depreciation goes away over a short period of time. 

We meet in person next week.It sounds like they are looking for a buyer who will pay off their existing mortgage and they will help out from a seller finance perspective on the rest of the $699k purchase price.If they put it on the MLS< what would it sell for?

I would put it on craigslist and FB to see if anyone wants it for free.Otherwise call a junk removal or abandoned car removal service. 

I hired Jenny Yi to design our latest STR in person, she demanded that I pay the full amount of her services upfront, $7,500, which I thought was strange as we are used to paying half upfront and half once it's completed, but proceeded anyway because a couple of people recommended her.

At the closing table I received the rest of December’s rent from the previous owner.

There may be requirements to cover the trash service depending on the town.My first commercial loan was 30% down, 20 year term (adjusting after the first 5 years).