Had an expence pop-up with my truck UGH! 

Just like every investor has different margins they'll accept, and different cost structures... every contractor is going to have different cost structures and margins they will accept.A jack leg, out-of-his-truck, unlicensed and uninsured "GC" is going to have a wildly different overhead cost than a respectable firm with an office, insurance, licensing, and accountability.

Did you self finance or finance an alternate way?

I have to be careful crossing the street....didn't see a car, but got run over by the Mack truck! 

Santa Monica, CAMedian 2006 was 850K2011 Median was $825K.2015 median 1.25 mil If you were to able to time Gold investing 2006-11 alternatively you would have come out much better.Many new investors are influenced by short term numbers as you noted. 

The best alternative is to do both.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to approach this with a bank or what other financing alternatives might be out there? 

The father could co-sign on the lease to give me an alternate method to collect payment. 

She works off of contingency and takes a 50% cut for any savings she gets in an alternate assessment year or 33% for two years if it falls on the assessment year.  

So as an alternative you could look at Small multi in an area Like Chico or Yuba city.