This could be an interesting and educational battle.

I'm also from Covina but live in the bay area now, best of luck in the journey!

It's a great way to get educated while still being productive.

You need to look through the Wind Shield in order to anticipate if the road ahead is clear or if there are obstacles that you need to avoid.Once you understand how to Drive your Business (or Investment), you start to do calculations based on the future, such as 10 year projections with Annualized Rental Increases, Expenses Increases, Rates of Return, Discounted Cash Flows, Internal Rates of Returns, etc.The people who think you can't calculate the future somehow missed the education which clearly has financial formulas that are designed for that.I am hoping the readers of this post really try to think about why there are formulas like FUTURE VALUE (FV)....... is that just something in someone's imagination?!

The long and short of it is that the trust would sell the props and reinvest into other income producing assets, and you could draw income from the trust during your life, and then whatever remains when you pass would go to your chosen charity (or educational institution, they reeeeealllly push this on their wealthy alums, but I like the idea of funding a worthy charity, personally).

To summarize, there are several factors that have me (as a first time buyer looking at Multifamily FHA for house-hacking) to wonder how far off I am from purchase and starting this journey. 

I have been in the real estate game since 2014, mainly educating myself and saving money to do my first deal. 

I will definitely seek out an attorney, and educate myself on operating agreements. 

We are just now starting to look into bigger deals and I'll tell you having a place like BiggerPockets is invaluable to help both educate us and ease some of the fear that you can have when considering larger scale investments. 

I know they'd love to have you.Best wishes to you on your journey to real estate investing success!