Although my husband is a agent and it was easy to put in the MLS, he didn’t want to be involved in showing the property (we have demanding w-2 jobs and 3 kids) so we found a local agent who agreed to take any potential tenants who contacted us directly and they would receive that $750 commission if one of those qualified and moved in.

You could look into a hard money loan in order to finance the deal and go about it that way or even look into private lenders that want to get involved in your project.

I will instead argue what I see as the pros and cons without having to involve any court. 

Hello Biggerpockets,I live in San Diego and I'm a project manager in mechanical construction and looking to find a way to get involved and get started in real estate.

The main reasons I do not like is the involvement of a HOA and many of them are built like well-fished apartments. 

My question is how do I involve my family in the deal for an owner occupied purchase?

This way you'll get an idea of how involved the owner is. 

You mentioned the Cromford report and city-data.com which are good information for current or past data, but if you're trying to forecast into the future, you need to get involved with the data of where things are going to be developing in the future.

@Tim Ryan I own and manage 75 units with a partner, no property management firm involved.

There's a few exceptions but they typically involve a job move etc but you won't qualify based on intent.