I am thinking it would be a benifit to already have the property in a LLC for asset protection and would make closing easier.

But I think as long as it’s clean and livable, it’s a go.

I've been looking into tax deed investing in California and am trying to figure out if land is easier to flip than property or if they both have the same issues with the title needing litigation or special services to sell for retail on the market.  

Once you've done the first one or two, they become much easier.

For example one client had roughly $17,000 in receipts over 7 months but because of the time and being let down by here cleaning company she decided to rent for the remainder of the year at $1,500/mo. 

It is important to be able to analyze the trailing 12 month financial statement of a property and take a deeper look at the loss to lease by examining the rent roll.Ideally, you are lucky enough to have an excel version of the rent roll provided to you by the broker or the owner you are interacting with on your potential acquisition (or.. if you or someone you know is developing a character recognition software that is able to read a PDF version of a rent roll and convert it to a nice, clean excel version please let me know!).

The right business decision is to put every tenant to full market and clean house.

Once the lease is terminated, then you can apply the last month's rent to their last month of occupancy and use the security deposit for any other unpaid charges, cleaning, or repairs.

As a newbie, I would like to invest in a city I know but I understand there are easier markets to work in, especially with the trend our city is in.

It's easier to look at a situation when one is not financially tied to the property, and the others on this thread are dead accurate.