It's reflective of the city's 1980's land use code, the restrictive elements therein, the complexity of getting permits and the massive growth that has occurred over decades. 

Then, if someone wants to show i require a picture of their driver's license and phone number. i then give them the code to the lockbox with stipulations to see the property between the hours of 7 am and 7 pm. they can see at their own leisure, they just have to let me know when they are through. i do inform them someone will be swinging by afterwards to check in (i dont specify when). i adapted this from my property manager (i have a PM for long distance properties, but self manage the local ones). she has used it for years with no issues. i still swing by the property periodically to make sure everything is okay, but it prevents having to physically be there everytime someone wants to see it.

I would reference section 17000 of the Financial Code and section 2943 of the California Civil Code.

You can purchase lists with different motivations like absentee owners, 60-90-120 days late on mortgage, pre-foreclosure, delinquent taxes, water cutoff, code violation, evictions, probate, divorce, etc. and mail or cold call. 

These are professionals with additional training and a stricter code of ethics.

If so, a tri-plex is considered multi-family in COH and falls under chapter 33 of the code ordinance.  

It's one of the many benefits of becoming a pro member, if you watch any of the webinars they typically offer a discount code at the end.

I always submit a FOIA request (Freedom of Information Request) to the city before I buy to confirm zoning, fines, judgments, violations, outstanding water bills or other issues, ongoing code enforcement issues, etc.  

I've started creating an initial spreadsheet that compares different zip codes by some of these metrics (see more here) but wanted to see what other metrics people were looking at.2.

Codes change, updates are required, impactors mitigated, it's a heck of a process.