My goal is to be able to live a comfortable life style and retirement plans for our future together is there anything I can do to make her better understand my vision for us.

I live 1000 miles away and my agent that I bought several properties from has retired so I knew no one.Only one agent even answered the email, one.Find an agent with experience that owns the type of property you want knows you can do this and will work for you.Telling them if you find me something good I will keep using you is a worthless statement to the agent because they well know who ever brings you a good deal you will use.

Talking to a retired family member who used to do sales and see if he would be interested in taking the calls for a commission? 

I don't know if you have access to any retirement accts or family/friends that may want a piece of the action as well.  

In regards to the LLC, can someone invest with retirement funds and still receive the tax benefits associated with the investment?

If you were just starting out, would you pursue a day job in the Real Estate field as opposed to any other non real estate career if the ultimate goal was to retire by 35 using a buy and hold Multifamily strategy?

Mostly my motivation comes from the fear of "settling down" with a safe job, a mortgage and a minimal retirement plan.

Previous tenent must have been a retired broker.I properly disposed of the confidential docs.Can you imagine what a less ethical person might have done?

Retired people moving to lower cost, small town cities all across the country.Of course, CA being what it is, also still attracts people to move here, hence the continued population growth.

hi scotttruebut thats the case in any market. the issue is not pricethe issue is value.you can buy well in any market if you know what you want and you know how or what to buy.35% discount or 50% discount should not be the only factor when buying but it is a very big driving force if the idea is to hold for the long run there are many reasons to buy real estate for growth, for return, for a loss( this is not the norm in your market but is in others) and even for retirement to shelve incomeso there are lots of reasons.the problem for long hold investors is looking for income and growth these are a bit hard to judge and even harder when buying into a new are or countrybut for me the rules are the same.do a templet and then duplicate it or mirror it.and price for me is not a major issue as long as it meeting your templete requrements