I would negotiate the price, draw up the contract that locks me into the purchase price and then I'd close on my purchase and sell the house same day after the renovations were done and a buyer is identified? 

As said above if you 1031 you're forced to identify your new purchase in 45d, and give how hot things are there's a slim change you'd find something worth the money, so you could buy a sub par asset, or be stuck holding the money and eat the capital gains - could be a mess. 

I wouldn't trust Airdna numbers either.It is super easy to identify your competition on Vrbo and Airbnb and compare their prices to get your baseline for different season.

Definitely include parents and siblings in the conversation once you have identified the potential options. 

Currently I have about a week to identify properties for the 1031 -I been looking at properties in the SD location (not looking to invest out of southern CA) and have not been able to find something that makes sense (cash flow, location and property condition).

Do this enough and you begin to quickly identify trends based on all sorts of indicators like age of property, square footage, bedroom/bath count, etc. 

Having a presence in the sub-market we identified that the rents were well below market and the property was not operating efficiently, perfect light value-add opportunity.How did you find this deal and how did you negotiate it?

Since you identified you primarily want to use this a str for income, that should narrow down your markets.

On one hand the contractor may provide you with critical information that will influence your offer such as identifying major cap ex or even items that may seem like a big deal to you but the contractor can tell you that it's actually not a big deal and nothing that should hold the deal back.

The trick is to identify them quickly, go see them ASAP, and then be decisive about whether or not we’re going after it.