For certain areas annual pest control may be needed for colder areas maybe you run the risk of freezing pipes.

If so run.  

Just make sure to run the numbers with the HELOC payment and the rent, so that you are not underwater every month.

Has anyone else run into this recently?

The flippers we personally work with in California have not run into this issue (as far as I'm aware).

for infill I concentrated on Charleston Sc and built about 35 homes in that market. uber competitive for dirt though they are running out of it and the city wont let you tear down homes in many cases because of historic considerations.

Well you'd actually be netting more in the long run by doing so compared to putting it towards the home. 

If you are running a mid term rental property, how is your business?

This means that you will probably need to pay registration and filing fees in at least 2 states if you don’t buy CA property as a CA resident.Any lawsuits should be limited to the assets of the LLC and not your personal assets (assuming you run the LLC appropriately and the corporate veil is not pierced, some debate as to SMLLC).

This means you need to pad your rehab costs, make sure you have trusted service providers that do great work, and when you run comps be sure to bring them down a bit and see if the deal still makes sense.