I personally would revisit your strategy of buying a negative cash flow property in SoCal, right now.

This strategy aligns well with the buy-and-hold model.Leverage Local Expertise: Partner with professionals like real estate agents familiar with rental markets and property managers who understand tenant needs.

Read books, network, research markets, and plan your strategy.

The best strategy I seem to have deployed so far was to contact all my current tenants and let them know I’d give them a cash referral fee of $250 for anyone they recommend to me that goes through the vetting process and successfully moves in.

So the exit strategy is the same with both options.

I like this strategy and plan to continue. 

Consider your investment strategy—house hacking, turnkey rentals, or real estate syndications—and start networking through local meetups or BiggerPockets forums.

The trick is to know the market and have a solid strategy for your approach.

A common strategy I see with diversification exchanges, is that the investor will purchase the first property cash and the second with a mortgage.

They have a good set of advertisements that focus on their whole house strategy which is good IMHO.We are running about 50/50 on bookings for 2025 right now.