Andy Sirkin, based in San Francisco but supposedly has done some in Las Angeles. 

If they try to pay their labor as 1099 they run at great risk of violating a host of draconian labor laws such as AB5, the borello law and a litany of "misclassification" laws.There are substantial differences in how "right to work" statstate as operate as opposed to "non right to work" states.SBA defines a small business based on employees and revenue size.

To start your journey, I recommend focusing on building your network by joining meetups and engaging in online forums, while narrowing down your first investment based on your budget, market, and goals.

So the question becomes based on their individual and personal tax situation what is the estimated tax burden they'd save? 

I paid for the subscription for a few months and drew my own custom Google maps areas and color coded them red/yellow/green based on a "grade" I felt came from a few metrics like crime/average household income/etcI also really like realtors dot com new maps, if you search for an address and click on the map and then go to the top left and choose the Value slider it will give you a nice color coded map of which areas of a neighborhood are higher valued.

Sounds like you are going with a Fannie/Freddie type loan based on the cap of 2%.  

There are way better people to talk to that are based out of here and know the market like the back of their hand. 

Mortgages are evenly loaded with interest based on the principal owed.

I am local to Los Angeles - based in Orange County.A bit about me: I’m a civil engineer by profession with experience in local government.

ABL, which is the basis for HML/fix and flip lending, will have different criteria and different focuses than multi-year loans based on cashflow and borrower credit score (long term mortgages).