But I also know that there are new, online brokerages, like OpenListings through which you can make offers, while getting a significant portion of the buyer's agent commission back.

Now if an investor outside of California were to broaden their investments out of their home state and into California's market, I believe they would find properties and deals in abundance due to the fact that there is a mass amount of properties that are either abandoned or forgotten about, unpaid property taxes and preforeclosures are everywhere, and the commercial/industrial portion of unused properties is incredibly widespread especially in the greater Los Angeles area, with new market places and strip malls being built in the suburbs left and right.

This changes the ENTIRE calculation for every tenant (because we now have to pay for the portion when it was vacant) and ultimately the RUBS calculator provided is useless right?

@Giovanni LunaYou're playing with the big boys on a deal this size.

I've looked at the demographics for statistics such as income, population age, resale, new development, taxes, economic growth potential and with a few variances which appear to be associated with the size of each area, they seem fairly similar.

You are correct, I was thinking about living in the portion of the property and renting the rest.

I understand that you own a portion of the property but are pretty much at mercy of whatever the syndicator wants to do or be bought out I would assume?

@Marty Summers It depends on the size of your 401k, but investing in real estate directly through you 401k is kind of a pain because you are investing with tax deference but that's one of the reasons to invest in real estate because of all the writeoffs. 

Read some books and attend podcasts so you learn how to underwrite and size-up deals that will make you money.

I can be personally debt free and have my budget covered on one right size deal.