@Bryant Brislin what's up another Southern California investor!

I live west of Chicago and you can forget about cash flow anywhere near me simply because of taxes so I'm looking elsewhere...Michigan, Indiana, or even western/southern Illinois.

Hate to answer your question with a short answer but this is been asked many times.People don't buy in Southern California with the idea of cash flowing.

If you can find a cheap 2-4 unit to live in and are willing to potentially even get roommates to share the unit you're renting, you might be able to swing buying something like that in southern California, but you probably wouldn't cash flow if you weren't living there, and you might end up paying more each month to live there than you would just renting an apartment.  

Hi, I bought a 1 bdrm condo in southern NJ for $120k in 2006.

Hi @Fran OBrien I looked into something similar to this to purchase a property with an investor from Israel.

i live in rural southern ohio. 

rural southern ohio is where i live.  

After running numbers for about 50 buildings through spread sheets during my search, the only ones that made any sense in cities in Southern Maine were buildings with 4 units, that pulled in a boatload of rent - usually due to their size (3 BRs).  

We own 5 in the southern ADK's, they do very well.