@Matt SwearingenI may have misread the initial part of the thread, but paid parking and rent of a flat are two separate matters and should be handled independently.   

That being said...in my past I have had some challenges.  

Any recommendations on good management companies in the area that can handle small to mid size apartment complexes?

After doing further research I was able to find the attorney handling the estate and was given a payoff amount.

I can't comment about the franchisees that you mentioned, but with the bit of experience I have, I would agree, low income is not where I would want to start.You definitely need to have the right personality to handle lower income rentals.  

I'd love to hear about your process so far, because as much as I've listened to pretty much every podcast episode, and read a ton on the first house-hack, the numbers in LA are just so challenging! 

On my search I was planning to utilize the 203K loan as well but I would suggest only dealing with a broker and agent that handled that specific type of loan before.

Good big goal @Steve Kozmeniuk But I would like to challenge you on the "keep buying houses" mindset.

This is handy if you have a specific email address that you use for one property but you want to handle all of your communication from another email account. 

Any horror stories of a tenant leaving the sprinklers on for 2 weeks or something... and how did you handle it?