@Alonzo Moreland - be careful with turbo tax or other national franchises like H&R block, I just corrected some major mistakes for new clients and saved them a few thousand by amending.Similar to investing out of state, working with a CPA somewhere else can be just as easy. 

I play the way I play, I realized listing agents care about the double commish more than running up DD and putting a buyer in a handcuff position. 

No one cares about your business to the same extent you do. 

For instance, during the crash of 2007/2008, national real estate prices dropped 19% and took 6 years to get back to the level they were at at the tip-top of the market.

Local knowledge may be quite helpful, particularly in a cutthroat market like San Diego.Keep in mind that investing in real estate requires careful planning because it's a long-term commitment.

For me, the difficulty is not being able to predict when your efforts will finally tip the scale.

Got it, thanks for the tips. 

Let me know what experiences/ tips you may have with this. 

The first and probably least popular for the servers I know is it is a cash business and historically tips are underreported to save on taxes but that also makes qualifying for loans tricky so you need to make sure you are claiming tips. 

Thanks for the other tips you gave above!