Now you have seismic resilient with fire preventative. 

@John Voychick I'm so sorry to hear about your experience, it really pains me to hear about people getting subpar treatment and customer service I always listen to people's experiences to make sure that I can prevent these kinds of things from happening to my clients.

Newer construction code requires better earthquake-proofing, but it's still aimed at preventing a building collapse rather than holding the value of the structure.About 15 years ago there was all the talk about "100 year homes" but I haven't seen much come of that.

I'm trying my best to prevent mold growth, so I asked tenants for their renters insurance, to which he said, "our renters was with geico and we just switched insurance providers this month and have not got a policy active yet." 

Looks like the fed has chosen inflation instead of more rate hikes for time being so should prevent that from becoming a reality. 

I don't think we will be able to afford a 1.5M+ mortgage without a huge down payment (sale of our house).I feel this would be going backwards as we would focus on one property preventing us to do other things.

And this low demand could be a couple of factors, either a rural location with low population density or the area incomes are not high enough in order to prevent a rent burdened scenario. 

@Pat Aboukhaled I would ULS (unit lot segment) the primary house and include a clause in the call option that would prevent them acquiring the DADU.

But then we have to get into talking about the passive loss rules, which may prevent you from actually being able to claim a tax loss if the deduction is more than your rental or other passive income.Or you can claim the actual expenses (gas, insurance, etc) for the vehicle and regular depreciation, proportioned by the percent of business use of the vehicle.  

Meet other investors in your area and stay in touch with them; you can ask them questions that might prevent problems.Best to you!