Verifying last 2 years of rental history and income extremely important to find the “best of the worst”.Make sure you understand the Class of properties you are looking at and the corresponding results to expect.

Currently there is that extremely thin, hard, cheap landlord carpeting (and also an area with cheap thin stick on hard tile squares). 

I’m looking for mentorship from other investors in this forum to help me identify deals, help avoid common pitfalls and learn from failures. 

Typically people think FHA because it's what's thought of as the least amount down which is commonly the goal when we all get started.

(We're from California as well) Everything has been extremely smooth so far and their staff has been excellent with their customer service. 

@Brian Dolbeare This is a "it depends" question for sure, but in most cases street parking is pretty common here.

Vetting the tenants and following local laws is extremely important.If you don't own a primary residence, would you consider house hacking (buy a single family and rent out the rooms or a duplex and live in one side/rent the other?

Another example is that with a tax auction it is common for all the interested parties to not be notified 100% correctly meaning they could in theory come back later and try to reverse the sale and take the property back!

I am hoping this number is extremely conservative given that our contractors, inspector, and realtor walked it as well. 

This thread is extremely interesting!