Unless you have the rentals paid for by the time you retire, they aren't going to be enough to live off of. 

I want to prepare my home for renting, and my plans are to buy a motor home to live in for the time being.

If you're living in an A area and cannot afford an A area property (hard to find anyway these days) and you need to drive a while to even get to an area you are interested in, door knocking is not for you.BUDGET: can you afford to do 1000 postcard mailings a month for 6 months straight?

I'll have my brother be the PM since he lives nearby.

I have talked to tons of investors recently and everyone says the Zillows interface is the worst, but it is just a side comment and we keep going on to the next conversation. 

Quote from @Allison Cutlip: Hi all, My boyfriend and I are buying our first home that is a duplex, planning to live in one unit and rent the other side.

Just to present an alternative point of view regarding California residents investing in STRs, I'd say the gambit still works and works well.For one thing, you still get to use the Section 263(a) tangible property regulations' de minimis rules, which probably mean you can immediately expense most of the furniture and fixtures in your STR.For another thing, while for your California return you won't be able to use bonus or accelerated depreciation for the personal property, you will still use shorter 5-year and 7-year lives for maybe 25% of the improvements.But the big thing: The federal tax bill is far, far bigger.

I doubt it was actually live.

His mom lives in Vancouver, Canada.

We overthink real estate...Just find a place that people with options want to live.