The issue is the building has a special assessment on it where 25k is paid this year (by the seller) and another 25k will need to be paid in the near future tbd (by the buyer).

It benefits from strong rental demand, making it easier to find and retain tenants.

A smaller group in the West faced rent cuts due to demand challenges, while only three major markets achieved a balance between high inventory growth and rent increases.

Now with interest rate hikes, lot of families are having large equity but cash poor, so they can only move to market with sub-one-million (200k families can afford sub one mil),and so on and so on.so people keep moving further to even area like modesto/stockton (these are sub 200k income family) , today the trend in bay area is that sub one mil is having very fast offer LOL , there's almost no opps as every one with BP is very aggressive.however, the rental demand is extremely huge.

I have a couple of ideas on how to approach the seller but I want to get your juices flowing and see what other creative ideas ya'll can come up with. 

I recently had a client buy a restaurant building, the seller had purchased the building, spent a good chunk of change fixing it up, and then promptly went out of business b/c the food they were looking to 'supply' wasn't in 'demand' in that market (a restaurant's 'market' is the local area, a destination resort's market is obviously "the country" or "the world," so I think part of it is automatically solved in your case).

I was womdering how the process was to work with an agent rather than the seller directly?

We are buying this completely furnished, so I'm trying to get a ballpark $ amount from the sellers.

When deciding between investing out of state vs home hacking in Oakland, keep the following in mind.Oakland House Hacking:Proximity: Living in Oakland while house hacking enables you to maintain a close proximity to San Francisco, which might prove advantageous for property management and maintaining connections with the local market.Possibility of Appreciation: Property values in the Bay Area have increased historically, which is good for accumulating equity over time.Local market dynamics, tenant preferences, and potential obstacles might be simpler to comprehend when one is in a familiar location.Demand for Rentals: Oakland has a robust rental market, and you can discover good demand for rental units if you pick the appropriate property and location.Creating Local Connections: If you live in the Bay Area, house hacking can assist you in making local contacts with property managers, real estate agents, and other investors.Investing Out of State:Investing outside of your state may be more affordable and enable you to use the same funds to buy more than one property.A few out-of-state markets can have more favorable cash flow prospects in contrast to the pricey Bay Area market.Geographic diversity, which can help reduce risks related to market-specific variations, is made possible by investing in a variety of markets.Hiring a local property management business, which offers a more hands-off approach to property management, is often necessary for out-of-state investments.Remember, both options have their advantages and challenges.

I don't have the ability to spend all the marketing dollars to get to the seller directly like the larger investors do.