@Piper Watson You really need a 680 or better fico to do any real estate investing, with $20k you might be able to find a subject to property, but you would becstuck with the 620 fico.

Wholesale lenders condition like a TRID loan and look at far more than just the subject property. 

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.

I explained to the seller that my offer contained a substitution of collateral clauses and I would be exchanging the note they held on the subject home with a note of similar principal and interest secured by a different property of greater appraised value.

Is it a a subject to?

Best market is subjective, almost all viable markets for investing have their pros and cons.

If the subject property is in an area that is highly desirable and the there are no rental comps, the data will be pulled from a distant location that may not be relevant. 

If there is debt on the property you run into the debt-financed property issue which can cause the rent to be treated as UBIT and be subject to the trust tax rate which increases to 37% extremely fast.

So if at death it is worth $5m, and of that $5m based on the waterfall agreement you and your sister would get a combined $800k - that $800k does not get stepped up, just the $4.2m that belongs to your father does.If your father is subject to estate taxes, and there are substantial discounts taken on the valuation of partnership interests in his estate - that cuts back on the step up, but it saves steeper estate tax, so it is a worthy trade most of the time.

It would be very good to hear from some executives at Baselane, Hemlane, Hospitable, who have tens of thousands of landlords across the country, share their insights into the subjects @Jamie Petraglia is asking about.