If you don’t know the legal notice requirements for your market make sure you figure all that out before you do anything. 

If the LLC and its income are entirely outside California, it typically does not require registration with the California Secretary of State (SOS) or payment of California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) fees, even if you reside in California.

Look for a market that is growing in population and jobs so that you can get in the way of obvious appreciation. 

I go through the applications and kind of number best to worse(job, salary, references) then if the favorite still wants the property, I run the reports and pay for it.

I know there is not a ton of resources that don't require large financial commitments, just wanted to see if anybody knew of cheaper alternatives. 

So this requires some upfront planning. 

Also, focus on 2 years of job/income stability.Class D Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, all cashflow with little, maybe even negative, relative rent & value appreciationVacancy Est: 20%+ should be used to cover nonpayment, evictions & damages.Tenant Pool: majority will have FICO scores under 560 (almost 30% probability of default), little to no good tradelines, lots of collections & chargeoffs, recent evictions.

I work with several who go to 600 or don't require a FICO for commercial at all.  

This is required for most landlords in the city, as part of the rental property registration program.

Depending on how it is done and what guarantees the government offers and requires of the released entities, interest rates could move slightly higher.