I’m at the stage now where I’m shifting my focus to cost of living and overall quality of life in each area.

Without the high leverage you reduce the top source of return in CA RE which is achieve via the appreciation on a high leverage property.  

Quote from @Jules Aton: If you are doing high grade laminate that should be good.

If I create a debt fund that offers 9% interest on first lien notes with a 5-7 year payout, would that be attractive to high net worth investors?

I also doubt very seriously that any brokerage/custodian is going to allow this kind of loan with 401k assets; it's likely going to need to be a 401k general purpose loan, which is highly regulated (as someone else mentioned). 

Of course this is on the high end of what I have seen in Oregon we can usually get to the same place for 100 to 200k..

You are right about high risk of default.

So advice to get the house against him and he will move out on his own is HIGHLY unlikely.  

So sad...... what is scary too is they only have them 10-20% contained and they are expected to get high winds again which can carry those embers pretty far. you also have to think these fire fighters etc. have been working around the clock and must be exhausted.

While I’m not an investor myself, I work with highly trained VAs who support real estate professionals in generating direct-to-seller leads.