If he's this happy with me wait till I give him thousands of dollars he has had tied up for years in a useless property! 

In Cleveland, I imagine there have been 10's of thousands of evictions in 35 years.  

You are equating hiring someone to hammer nails and drive screws, and hiring someone to analyze the worth of an investment opportunty into which you are about to dump thousands of dollars!  

I've done well over a thousand (!)

I am just one of the thousands of real estate investrors who buy property with little or no money, and make big chunks of cash or monthly cash flow by doing so.  

So if you have a good paying job in LA and can stomach low initial returns....long term the difference will be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

The owner of the unit is not paying the association's HOA fees and is now several thousand behind.  

I have had tens of thousands of dollars of damage caused by 'good dogs' and "wonderful, loving" cats-some so severe that it was almost better off to demolish the property.Even if I accepted a substantial ( and by substantial, I mean $10k or more) pet deposit  I still run the risk of exceeding that if enough damage is done. 

It looks like having the LLC is going to cost me thousands each year.

Many have wasted 4 years and tens of thousands of dollars while getting a worthless degree but there's plenty to learn in college that will come in handy when you are older.