I'm hesitant to sell given the "goose that laid the golden egg" with nearly 700K in equity that can be tapped, paid off and repeat....Would love some thoughts!!

As I'm about to start medical school next fall, I've got a goal of developing passive income approximately equal to this salary so that I can eat and pay my mortgage on the condo (I plan to house hack again and live with another med student) preferably out of that rather than having to take out more loans that only have one repayment solution. 

So if all your debt is in your rentals, you may be considered less risky as those are income properties, not where you sleep and eat.

I wonder if my staying in California and buying relatively cheap property in say TN or NC/SC for rentals is unmanageable and then hiring a property manager eats into the profit.Thanks for any advice in advance!

As it is "they" are now realizing that tenants are not going to be able to repay the rent -  so soon they will want us to just eat it...... 

Prorate the rent for the # of days the tenants are without a water heater and eat the cost of the plant.

There is a huge, ginormous Ralph's (grocery store) to make student's eating and living lives easier, plus within and around campus are tons of eateries and student dining options.

If you do that a few times you will only be around 35 years old and should be sitting on a pretty sizeable nest egg to invest with, where you can have an LLC and put 20% down on future properties no problem.

With family, I prefer a VRBO where we can eat in and have room to spread out. 

Properties taxes are really high and eat up all the cash flow .