@Marcus Amison, that is a question for a real estate attorney in the state you intend to buy property in.

This means that you will probably need to pay registration and filing fees in at least 2 states if you don’t buy CA property as a CA resident.Be sure to tell your accountant that you may now need to file non-resident income tax returns in each state where you own property as well.

Buy what is familiar to you and close to you.

Quote from @Arkadiy Iliyayev: Thanks for the reply Jake, I really appreciate itIf you cut Brownsville in four pieces using the interstate to divide east and west and Ruben Torres to divide north and south, you'd be safe buying basically anything north of Ruben Torres with the notable exception of Cameron Park.

The more I learn, the more I understand why a person would want to sell and buy this way:1.)

The programs are created for investors who buy distressed homes, repairing them and then either selling them or holding them for rental income and flipping the hard money loan to a long term DSCR loan where the rents will underwrite the loan.Program availability vary by state.

The plan is to live in the worse off unit regardless of what property we end up buying. 

So you can buy a four flat, live in one unit and rent the other three, but you have to live in one unit on the site. 

I'm not afraid to buy, in fact I hate money sitting in the bank doing nothing for me.

This means that you will probably need to pay registration and filing fees in at least 2 states if you don’t buy CA property as a CA resident.Any lawsuits should be limited to the assets of the LLC and not your personal assets (assuming you run the LLC appropriately and the corporate veil is not pierced, some debate as to SMLLC).