LA is a good one, but I'll use a different example.Property taxes in cities tend to be much higher than those outside the city.  

You tend to need to bounce around until you find them.

When selling a property, landlords tend to show lower maintenance.  

You can even ask him to list out material and labor separately.I tend to ramble so I hope some of this made sense and was helpful.

I tend to disagree with other folks in general (not the necessarily the posters here) where they mostly said get a property vacant. 

The deals I buy nowadays tend to be complicated, hairy and/or distressed properties (usually off market) or in one case a result of a yellow letter campaign.  

Its not that we want to gouge tenants but when we get a house full of students they tend to think "mommy and daddy" are going to clean up and fix everything they leave behind.

Personally, I've found that mailing to delinquent property tax owners brings in some pretty spectacular results, and the property owners tend to be VERY motivated to sell (you can send them some pretty ridiculous offers and they will seriously consider taking it).Getting properties for 10% - 30% of market value is *absolutely* in the realm of possibility, and you can virtually eliminate your competition.

The higher a return generally the more risk is involved and the activity tends to be less passive.If you wanted to just collect a check with tax depreciation then I would look a triple net properties getting 6 to a 10 cap to start depending on the property and rent bumps annually of 1 to 2.5%.

Granted, the trades tend to breed oversized egos, so it can be a challenge to find a disarming approach, but it can be worth the effort.