Home prices are high here so I'm really leaning towards investing out of state or in a different part of Florida to create cash flow vs. buying a personal residence and starting my savings over from scratch to invest.Don't get me wrong, I really want to buy a place of my own that I can live in but the math is making a bit more sense to me if I invest first.

Rent ready, non value add, mls purchases in San Diego are large negative cash flow if financed at current rate with a high LTV loan.  

You can forget any large bank like Wells boA or large regional s I highly doubt with your scenario they will provide any credit to you.then you have the Brokers who are responding.. they set you up with a direct HML that does vertical Rates 10 to 15%  and points 3 to 6.. of which the brokers take 2 to 4 points for setting these up for you. 

I highly recommend checking and verifying IDs.

People said prices were out of control and way too high in 2014-2016 (you can find many threads on BP about it). 

However, upon transferring it back to your dad, the basis is not relevant anymore.In the end I would highly recommend you reach out to a tax professional here to get this sorted out.

I agree with the sentiment of "you must be highly organized." 

Agreed, it will impact the convenience and may strain with high-income tenants..  

I live in Northern NJ and as I mentioned the barrier of entry for me in NJ is too high.

Luckily I stayed in the car and they let me drive away.The problem with some of these C class areas are that you're going to get high vacancy, evictions, and high turn costs with tenants damaging the property.