To Joe's point, hard money would be more complicated but definitely not impossible.

Sure a 1031 might be more complicated with several SF homes, but individually speaking I think they’re a lot easier to dump if you find yourself in a pinch.

Don't make it more complicated than it needs to be.

Hopefully it's not too complicated, but I really advise to get to some sort of expertise in building out these kinds of spreadsheets!

California generally has more complicated taxes than other states, and as a CA resident, you will be taxed on all your income in CA versus just the nonresident income in the other state, that you either want a CA-based CPA, or one who is familiar with CA laws and prepares several CA returns.

In our case, in order to avoid complications, most of my clients just lend the funds to an investor/flipper.

Usually a cost segregation complicated the 1031 process somewhat, but at the looks of things that process just got more complicated on its own.

A third solution would be to partner with someone and have them put the property in their name, but that can get more complicated and you'd want a lawyer to write up an agreement.

I have a contractor that I use for jobs that are too complicated for my boys to do. 

You're over complicating this.