We cannot afford to invest in our area (Southern California) so we are planning to look OOS.

I been told by few mortgage brokers in Ca what I need to show income for 2 years as W2.Can be law diferent in Ca and Il?

Also if you are not going to scale up, it doesnt make sense to be an OOS landlordwhen I thought I wanted to be king of the C class rental world and bought 350 of these.. one thing I did prophylactically was I replaced the waste line on all our homes during initial rehab

I’m in “rural” California and I couldn’t build my rentals or my primary home for anywhere near what I can still buy them for.  

This will be my only property in CA.

They are becoming more and more common/popular in the Joshua Tree area of California where I am an active investor/VRBO operator. 

I'm using Loopnet to find deals and work the numbers, it's merely an exercise to get more comfortable running numbers:The "deal": http://www.loopnet.com/for-sale/ca/?

(You should read The 10X Rule if you haven't).And maybe one day you'll be the retired real estate investor at a retirement home who has a killer development deal for the 90-year-old civil engineer who never quit taking action either.well I am not 90  but I still do continuing ed on my mortgage bankers license even though I have not used it officially in 6 years and I keep my CA brokers license active even though I have not been there in 18 years  LOL.. its a pride thing.. along with I don't want to have to take the tests again.. 

Have not heard re CA. 

I'm a California transplant (moved here in 2009).