What some people on BP don't seem to understand is to stop making the assumption that everyone is not working their best at thisif you have to provide negative comments or any sort of negativity when providing advice, then advice or recommendations shouldn't be your fortéAs i mentioned before.

As mentioned utilities.  

that is accurate.i skimmed the responses and didn't see anyone mention house hacking. 

The lessons you learned the hard way in 2008 will be invaluable now, and it’s great that you’re aiming to stay small-scale and within your comfort zone of Sacramento, which gives you an advantage of knowledge in that market.Given your experience, I'd say start by focusing on three key areas to build confidence and minimize risks:Budget Control: Over-renovating was one of the big mistakes you mentioned.

They mentioned they didn’t need any income.

It is worth mentioning that there are indeed investors.

After picking a handful of areas of interest, it took me about 6 months to work on the deals that met the numbers I mentioned before.Now its time to scale!  

As mentioned above, Portland has more restrictive rules than most of the state of Oregon.

As @Jonathan Greene mentioned this is kind of a dated strategy in the new price/interest rate environment.

As someone else mentioned, make sure you don’t go overboard with the updates.