That will reduce your need to renegotiate on price after going under contract3 - Use a local Title company net seller sheet to calculate estimated closing costs. 4 - Find a hard money lender that can close quickly. 5 - Practice patience.

We've considered selling some of our properties to leverage the building and reduce our total loan amount but would love to hear your thoughts on this strategy. 2) Should we opt for a small apartment building - thinking economy of scale? 

I start with ARV less the cost of repairs and may be a little bit of extra margin because somebody still has to take all the work on, never mind the fact that your buyer pool will be reduced to cash buyers and those with rehab loans. 

If the seller listens to the realtor, he will go through a slow death of reducing prices until he sells it next year some time.  

Do I have the wrong mindset here and should I be more focused on reducing taxes as much as possible?

I suggest to stay out of city of LA and hug the coast if you want to reduce risk.

We all need to live some place, so you might as well start building equity, and reducing your housing cost to start.Some strategies to househack include....1) Multifamily 2) Rent by the Room3) ADU - Accessory Dwelling Unit.Each of these 3 strategies will have prime and non-prime locations in the metro area.

Coming out of finance, I banked profits for a reserve for lean times; yet it still doesn't assuage the anxiety that happens from each booking that cancels.

Yes we could clean ourselves, but elect not to with 3 young kids.In general, all the things that could go wrong for a guest, things that are unacceptable when paying as as a guest (internet outage, clogged drain, etc)The anxiety of managing to positive reviews in the early days when one bad review can do you inUnknown and changing legislation 

Put that in perspective, you have credit card bill and your balance is $50,000 and your payment of $1000 only reduces your balance by $550 dollars.