I hear people are dying to move in.....

Instead of asking people that may give bad advice, go straight to the source.

We are giving people and we want to make our tenants lives better with some upgrades here and there.

As time moves on and people are stepping up their design game (As an STR Designer this makes me SOOOO darn happy!)

Fresno and Sacramento are recipients of people leaving HCOL areas.

If not, get referrals for a lender from people whose judgment you trust.

You likely won't get Short term but some people use a mix of airbnb and furnished finder. 

If you don't have any leads or don't know where to start here are a couple suggestions: ask brokers who people use for debt, find a mortgage broker as they have access to different buckets of capital, use a website like CoStar to look at closed transaction over the last 12 months and see who they used for debt.

There are many people that make money in real estate in CA.  

I've gotten the current infill lots by word of mouth, wholesalers, and people coming up to the build site asking if we'd like to buy their lots.