there was a follow up post where someone got a loan from them but for realistic rates  8% or so and few points.. under 6% private / hard money simply does not exist unless its a family friends type situation. that bank rates or lower right now for new construction or fix flip  

Is this home in the beach a new construction or an existing home?  

Due to increased rates i did not refi so i did not get opportunity to see how an appraiser valued the half bathroom but the comps with same bathroom count had crazy valuation for the additional half bathroom.Taking under utilized space like a work area to add a br where the added br does not put you above the normal for the area can add value.Similar if a neighborhood is virtually all 3 br and 4 br properties and you find a 2 BR, it could be a value add to add the bedroom via new construction.  

Most new construction deals require you to give up to a 10-year warranty on some items while most fix and flips come with very little extended liability after the sale excluding gross negligence which is not stopped by an LLC in any case.

You have to adjust your expectations to match current reality, which includes higher mortgage rates, higher prices, more expensive taxes and insurance, more competition, etc.

To be honest, I´m in the Maintenance & Construction for corporate businesses for some US companies in Mexico and we do some Real Estate down here also, but it´s way much different than the US, so I have much to learn from a lot of people around here and as @Julio Gonzalez, I think this is pretty much the right pad and place to start and to break my fears to start all over again from scratchAlso, I´ld like to hear more from @Justin Brickman why he voted for his city, pros and cons, it will help to read from a local...As I said before, thank you all guys for taking the time to write in this post and share some experienceDo you plan to owner occupy. $40k will not get you a non owner occupied San Diego property unless you find some unlikely alternate financing.

Bringing better comps to the appraiser’s attention is definitely worth a shot and can sometimes lead to adjustments.

Especially now, I am seeing a lot of people who bought during or right after the COVID pandemic and are in situations where they simply cannot sell their homes for any profit (many of them bought as new construction).

Is in there, but a great thing you can do now is get your "core 4" figured out - agent/lender/manager/contractor - obviously you can adjust this and do one of the pieces yourself (self-manage for example) or don't need a contractor if you do only turnkey etc but getting this nailed down early is key

If there is not enough STRs in the market you are in then you have to adjust business practices.