The only problem with that last option is that it seems to defeat the purpose of cashflow if I sell one rental and buy another.

If not, I would recommend doing that and comparing the prices. 4) $900 in property taxes?

My question is - is this a marketing thing or a true determination of what purpose they can be bought for? 

This is a good sign I think.As for multifamily, there are not a ton of purpose built small multi families in SB so they are definitely tougher to dig up.

Not to mention the fact that the convention center is a big draw all year, there is a thriving downtown, and the winters are extremely mild compared to a majority of the US.

The downside is restrictive guidelines, a ton of paperwork, lack of flexibility.Commercial types of financing have pros that are flexibility in guidelines and structure you can do all sorts of stuff from substitution of collateral to partial lien releases on blanket commercial mortgages to cross collateralization and many others, less documentation than conventional financing products, use of debt coverage ratio (DCR) as opposed to Debt to income (DTI) and if you compare DCR to DTI the commercial lenders go up to 80% DTI since the reverse of 1.25x DCR is .80 or 80%.There are downsides to commercial financing and that is the convenants with in the mortgage note that can allow the lender to call the note so make sure to read all the definitions for what substantiates a "default," by the lender you'll be surprised by the definitions and language at times. 

How do these compare to notes or syndications as far as risk and hassle and returns?

While this may (or may not...depending on your personal perspective) sound like a lot of property, consider that it has taken us over 11 years to acquire this portfolio and at some point it required us to jump from being 'interested' and to become 'committed' to the process.The purpose of this post is to talk about the difference between being 'interested' vs. being 'committed'.

While this may (or may not...depending on your personal perspective) sound like a lot of property, consider that it has taken us over 11 years to acquire this portfolio and at some point it required us to jump from being 'interested' and to become 'committed' to the process.The purpose of this post is to talk about the difference between being 'interested' vs. being 'committed'.

And I realize your holding costs are the opportunity costs of lost gains in current securities, but if you compared to risk withhard money borrowed funds, you are in much better shape!