As I was reading the forums, I gained so much knowledge and yet totally overwhelmed.

But buying property can be expensive if you’re not careful.

You will have to calculate your gross rents, less your expenses, etc. 

Seems to me a bit expensive for the location.

From the initial assessment of this property the property expenses are out of balance (i.e. no property management figured, maintenance cost is $500/year, fuel costs of over $4000, along with some other similar items) not to mention some deferred maintenance on the property as well.

My thinking is that I need to create a set of business accounts using my name as the owner and flow my income/expenses on these first two properties though those accounts and then have a separate set of accounts for the LLC activities related to any new properties.

You are in a pretty expensive market, do you invest solely in CA?  

Say I want to partner with someone to buy a multi for $400k and after all expenses there's $800 pm positive cash flow.  

My experience is that I can rent a two bed/one bath upstairs apt for $650/month.Mortgage - $300 (assumption is conventional loan...this is variable)Maintenance - $32.5 (5%)Management - $65 (10%)Property Tax - $50Total Expenses - 447.5Net - $252.5Quite honestly, I think I could make these numbers look better (refinance my duplex and get cash out for much less for example), but I'm curious what others think.I should probably state that my goals for right now are horizontal income without too much work.

.-6-units fully rented ( 2-1bdr/1ba, 4-2bdr/1ba)-Sale Price to end buyer = $420K-Yearly rent = $72K-Yearly expenses = $21K (includes taxes, utilities, insurance, garbage, exterior maintenance)-NOI = $51K/yr-CAP Rate (NOI/Price) = 12.14%Please let me know what you think!