@Philip Anderson I'd recommend checking out @Baird King's meetup in Santa Barbara and @Kevin Aranha's in Ventura. 

If you live in CA, NY, Boston etc - the financial difference is big enough.Investing in your home town is always best, you have the home-field advantage and you can buy, rehab and manage a lot more efficiently.

Out-of-state investing makes the most sense for me—it’s impossible to cash flow anywhere near me, and moving wouldn’t make sense because I wouldn’t be able to earn the same wages or find the same kind of jobs.Before this purchase, I already owned two properties: a long-term rental outside Houston, Texas, and a short-term rental in the Sierras in California.

You will need to look at CA building code.

Quote from @Hector Romero: Hello all, I am new to the community as well as being the lead in real estate investments.My sister and I currently hold 3 properties next to each other in Riverside County, California (we'd like to get them in an LLC but we're unsure how that may affect financing them).

I assume something like this is more than you want to tackle for a 1st quadplex (https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/241-W-King...), but what about this SF for a BRRR (https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/2101-Arapa...)? 

I like umbrella because there is no worry of being pierced for inadequate separation of finances, if sued you have a heavy weight in your corner who has all the consequences of a defeat, and because usually it is reasonably priced (mine today is not so reasonably priced but I believe it is mostly related to the risks of CA).I do understand that the probability of needing the umbrella policy is low.  

@Tanner King learn how to work backwards on analyzing a deal, so you figure out the purchase price to offer to make your numbers work.Too many newbies think they have to offer asking price, which is not the case.

Purchase price: $1,485,000 Beautiful estate-like property in the Redwood forest above Santa Cruz CA.

If the client is in CA the community property state laws may help here (not entirely sure) depending on when the property was acquired but it would be a great question for an attorney as Jason mentioned.If they were married and went through a divorce it would be worth looking into how the divorce paperwork stated how that property would be handled.