I am now approaching 115+ days since assignment on my first 3 deals and because I am in NYS, my attorney tells me that I cannot even speak to buyer’s or seller’s attorneys due to “breach of contract”.I lost my first deal in fact because we were hindering on 130 days since assignment (should have been long closed) and the city decided to demo before we closed and were able to takeover in court.

Even if you create a non-CA LLC, if you are managing the business from California, you will likely be deemed to be "doing business" in California and therefore likely subject to CA taxes.

Looking back, I regret not buying another flip, or even a smaller house as a future rental. 

Buy the house as you normally would, then once it is yours, draw up a lease agreement for whoever you are renting it to-even if it is family that you are renting to.

Done right and you live with little to no out of pocket expenses possibly even make a.few bucks, you realize some equity and leverage the equity down the road for your next investment.  

I would love to connect to exchange ideas and even see if there are ways we can help each other. 

Even facebook might have some good local groups for you.

Construction buddies of mine have more work than they know what to do with, even average realtors seem to be doing well.

If it's a detached ADU, it would come even lower.

The point of this story is to demonstrate how real estate lending is relationship based and its worth spending more time, effort and perhaps accrue interest expenses early on, even if you don't necessarily need the financing because formulating these relationships are extremely helpful as you grow.