I would steer clear of hard and fast rules like the 70% rule in general, they are too broad and don't work in a lot of markets in Southern California for example there is no way you are getting a house at 70% ARV -expenses unless it is off market and you are comfortable taking advantage of someone, or maybe raw land. 

Someone today said I have a babyface, and they're probably just trying to take advantage of me.

Today I went to the house and served her personally with a 3 day to Pay or Quit and a new 30 day Termination of Tenancy dated from today 12/02/2017.

can you expound on your comment " they do not want you to have a contract on the property"  how do you get started if your not in contract to buy.. and how is that real in this very fast moving market. ??

Good points @Brent Coombs, am definitly getting an education in what not to do, but it could have gone the other way also and sold out fast, when we subdivided there were 0 lots in the area to build on, and houses were being built on every available lot, so I took the chance that they would sell fast. 

My wife is on the board of one of the HOAs, but both HOAs are using the same property management company to handle the accounting and day to day property management issues.The question for this post is, can some recommend a property management company that will handle a small number of units - either 14 or 7, and work with an HOA and is in Oakland.Here's the background -- the current property management company apparently only manages much larger complexes -- 100 units and up -- and so is not doing a good job with this small fish of a property.

If you pay $20000 for one today in 10 years it will be worth $5000.

We own the 1-800-OUT-FAST brand.

This is NOT a hard and fast rule but the odds are in your favor there.The winterizing crews they use don't bother to check the system BEFORE they winterize.

Then your next vacancy will be in the spring/summer.The unfortunate thing that I have learned the hard way is that high end 2 bed units just don’t rent as fast as 3 bed units.