Some ppl will take the 'low hanging fruit' bc its an instant tenant thats paying vs having to fill the unit.personally I'd take the unoccupied and fill it to market rent. plus it cost less to get rent ready. 

So your comparison is a bit apples to oranges, almost all of the reduction in points is b/c you're evaluating a FRM at 20% down v ARM at 25% down.

That's apple to orange.

I grew up in Orange - yeah, the ghetto part of Orange proper, not Thomas Edison's West Orange - and have lived everywhere in NJ.

I know that knockdown is a decent ceiling texture but I noticed "orange peel, egg shell" look is what a lot of the builders use here.

Feel free to contact me I specialize in the Westside of Jax and Orange Park.

And was your search in Beacon fruitful, and is a VRBO a decent possibility there?

Now for the bad news (as your title states)...You're in Orange County, CA!

I think the holding period would be about a year so the first year would hemorrhage cash flow (not included in the analysis above), but subsequent years would be fruitful.

The stories like these inspires a newbie real estate investor like me to invest on a good property and wait for the time when it become fruitful.