The requirement is that the house meet habitability standards, and building code standards say a house must be pest free to be habitable.

If you can buy something habitable, and rehab it over time while you live there, that could be a home run of an investment when you look at your return on investment, especially if you house hack.Sure you may leave cash in the deal, but if you buy right, it could still be an extremely profitable and low-barrier to entry way to get into real estate.

Pregerson ruled on November 13, 2020 that the apartment owners had failed to show “irreparable harm” because (a) there was no immediate threat of foreclosure, and (b) the City Moratorium appeared to be “imminently reasonable” in the context of the unprecedented pandemic.[3]"https://www.natlawreview.com/a...Pretty sad that the judiciary is passing the buck to the legislature and not wanting to get involved. 

There was client bank account information in the folder and she could have done significant further harm to our business.

Every room occupied for sleeping purposes by one person shall contain at least seventy (70) square feet of habitable room area and every room occupied for sleeping purposes by two (2) people shall contain at least fifty (50) square feet of habitable room area for each person.

My concern is whether the city could deny permits for these modifications, such as removing walls or converting a garage, or if they are mainly just concerned with safety and habitability.

It is quite common for a state's definition of habitability to include at least a stove.

If you only plan on owning 2-4 properties, then there's really no harm in self-funding them unless you know a better, safer way to make more than the going interest rate on that money (most investment mortgages right now are about 7%, maybe effectively 5.5-6% after taxes depending on your brackets and tax structure).

Communication good or bad goes along way to keeping investors from being upset to going ballistic on the internet and creating irreparable harm to the syndicators reputations.

Keep in mind in Los Angeles if something isn't permitted a tenant may make an argument about the unit not being habitable.