For me personally, I would not take on a mortgage if it was going to cause the property to be cash flow negative.

The seller wanted the mortgage payments to go to his home address and that caused the confusion as the buyer didn't get any notification of the mortgage payment change. 

It’s considered an act of god if a strong wind blows down a healthy tree that nobody expected to fall, but if a dead tree has been looking like it’s about to fall for awhile and the owner has been notified of the hazard it causes, then their inaction can cause them to be negligent in addressing the hazard, and they may be found to be liable.

The 3rd thing that has reshaped my entire opinion of the tax advantages of real estate, is seeing my 88 grandfather holding five quite valuable illiquid properties, long story short it’s a mess, it’s causing family drama, he is in zero shape physically or mentally to manage them, the all have cap-ex needs, again these were amazing buy’s literally multiple properties he bought for under 50k that are now worth over a million but there is probably a time and a place for owning real estate, so I don’t really have a need to own more than maybe a few properties into retirement.

Have the agent video everything, just in case tenant is there and causes a scene or refuses access.You will either get the work done or have a video supporting your eviction.

Most focus on rate and amount of cash to close but bad loan administration or bad loan administration policies may cause the project to be far more capital intensive if viewed beyond day one of funding.

Section 8 can definitely cause extra headaches like the longer wait times to get a tenant in there, the inspections, and the incompetent CMHA office you can never get a hold of.  

Air conditioned air leaking to crawlspace making crawlspace heat or cold depending on season causing more power bill to tenants.

I am unsure if this lower occupancy is the result of increased interest rates or some other cause, but mission beach definitely has significantly less guests in the off season than in 2019.  

You'll probably want to look into having your assets held in a living trust or some other kind of trust if wishing to avoid probate in California.As to your question about the mortgage, there's a federal law that the attorney might be referencing that generally protects transfers into a living trust from causing the need to refinance, but would need more details to discern.