This takes guts and is easier when the economy is horrible.

If your house is raised (crawlspace) its an easier job, but still labor intensive as the line would have to be dug up and replaced. 

Coming from a tech background I find it easier to understand tech fundamentals better than other industries.

Rent it for $450-$550/month, cashflow $200-$300OROption 2: BRRR a 30K houseIt seems it might be smarter to do a BRRR just because I imagine it would be easier to pull the money back out this way to do it again.Any thoughts?

Not sure how to offer "fresh" items like milk or bakery muffins if I can't have them in a supply closet for the maids to put out after a cleaning...I am putting a Keurig in and planning to offer a variety of coffee, tea, and hot cocoa pods and some shelf-stable half and half or creamers.

That is simply the next state that I would like to see and figured it might be a bit easier than the bay area.

Quicken - Of course, maintaining clean accounting records is very helpful....Venmo, Paypal, GooglePay - I use all of these services for one off payments to third parties. 

Just yesterday on the latest podcast it was stated that it's easier to do this if you understand the money and business side of things and hire out the labor vs the opposite of that situation.

FHA is great if you're going to owner occupy 2-4 unit, but conventional 5% wins on SF-- the mortgage insurance cost is lower and easier to remove.

Keep it simple.I made to many mistakes...so now I only will get an obvious good deal at about 50% and no major work....work should get done in two or three weeks and put up a for sale the second you close....for .99 cents you can get a for sale by owner and you will see the neighbors will be your best buyers...even though the house may have been for sale for a year or more.Once the neighbors see the house sold...then they want it...they say...darn...I should have bought it....so jack up the ask about $25K over what you paid and just fix the yard and paint the front of the house and clean up the mess inside and see what happens.