House hacking with an FHA loan is a great way to minimize living costs while building equity, or you could invest in an out-of-state rental for steady cash flow.

I am putting in a link to something that may be help, a cost of living comparison calculator (https://www.bankrate.com/real-estate/cost-of-living-calculat...). 

.- The holder of a work permit does effectively become a tax resident as far as the CRA (Canadian Revenue Agency) is concerned at which point they will qualify for certain things such as purchase a house without being considered as the foreign buyer; hence, foreign ban hammer not weighing on them.

For residential multifamily properties (1 - 4 units), can you use a home warranty to take care of the repair costs associated with rentals?

However, I still struggle to understand the art of estimating rehab costs. 

A bit pricey if you do only a few flips a year, but I'm going to give it a shot and seems if it's worth the monthly cost. 

Trying to get a # from him about estimated remaining cost but got nothing.   

Real estate is not the stock market and it's called buy & hold and not buy & sell for a reason.I did sell a few properties about 10 years ago when I learned the hard way that going into cheaper neighborhoods was not the right strategy for me, so that was basically a strategy correction and it was necessary, but also costly both in terms of dollars and time.

The cleaning costs alone were over $9k.

However, in California, each LLC incurs an $800 annual franchise tax plus gross receipts fees if revenue exceeds $250,000, and property insurance may cost more.