I’ve also used Home Warranty services (could write a book actually) as a hedge for C class properties I managed in the past so I empathize with the intent. 

Materially participate & rent for less than 7 days, you should be able to write it off against active income. 

First I'm writing this review because the experience bothered me so much.

Who told you that you cannot write off the insurance on the investment property?

The other issue is forest fire risk plus insurers are dropping policies and most insurers won’t write policies there anymore.

You have to really understand your renovation costs and timeline when you write an offer on a fixer.

Write your goals down on paper to get things done. 

You need to get in writing the delinquencies on rent.

Take good photos and write a good description and you should be fine. 

I have a list of maybe 15 note buyers and feel that if it's not an absolute deal killer, one will accept that they get the head of the note and my loan is 100% LTV against the tail.If you have to partial first to build a note portfolio that meets minimum loan amounts for lenders, then you have an order of operations problemThe only thing I can think of here is to write in the partial sale terms that I have the right to take a loan against up to 50% of the UPB on the note and retain the full right to collateralize it for loan purposes, as if I were the sole principal.