I pay $1140 to get another inheritance every year and put it on the mortgage and net out X savings and as long as my rich relatives keep dying I'm golden.

Our goals are to one day have a ranch with a small lake or river that we can offer a respite to missionaries across the globe as well as a beautiful place to retire and watch our grandchildren grow.  

This thread is golden!

Each market will have their positives and negatives and there will be no single market that can be crowned the golden egg.

Reinvest that, and cover any neg cash flow with the positive you already have  few years later you will have that much more equity in all your CA properties, and can pull more cash out to buy again if the time is right  Look, it's very hard to get into the CA market, but once you have cashflow and appreciation here, you're golden!  

i've heard the HUD golden standard/guideline is 2+1 max persons total per bedroom (2 in bedroom area and 1 outside bedroom, max) to me that's too much (2/3 in a 1 bedroom or 5 (or 6?)

Just follow the Golden Rule of Landlording: Be Compliant, consistent and fair, everything else will fall into place.

But, then I'd want to paint the walls a different color - maybe a very light golden yellow - to where it's so light, it just looks off-white. 

The tenant you have is golden, with a capital G. 

You may have just found the golden tenant.