STR (if more than 50/100 miles from your home, or at a destination like lake house or beach house), allows you to put 10% down vs 15/20% down for conventional financing. 

Imperial beach because it is cheapest beach RE for ~200 miles for various reasons but a big one is the sewer issue.  

Talk about how good the schools are, how close to the beaches or other attractions, Size/type of kitchen, ease of maintenance of swimming pool if in place or jet powered swim lane, Covered parking if so, etc. 

I have a 4 bedroom townhouse in an HOA, in a beach area near a party town. 

hardly, the market does fluctuate here but it's the most dire supply and demand market I've seen (other than some CA beach towns).

The cities we narrowed down to: Long Beach, Huntington Beach, Cypress, Anaheim, Garden Grove, Westminster, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, etc. 

Chris, the notion that you can become a millionaire while sipping pina coloda's on the beach isn't a reality.

From what I've gathered demand is down a bit and so if you are even further from the actual beaches I could see you not getting enough occupancy. 

Plus is the house first row, beach front?

The area is a harbor with a beautiful beach, seals, whales, otters and  lots of tourism and mixed uses.