If it's that big of a deal he should hire an agent or a property manager to rent it out for him.Venice is a diverse area.

He has worked on financings ranging from commercial real estate, tech startups, Hollywood productions, delivering private aircrafts to international airports, and many things in between.

I’m seeing places in the $350-400K (single family) range and an online tax estimator is saying it could be between $8-9K per yearIs this what I should be expecting a year or two after purchase?

@Jacob Scholes the appraiser will do a projected rents schedule and whatever you submit as projected rent - as long as they appraiser justifies that it is within reasonable range is used.

It's also best practice, in my opinion, to make the 'base' purchase price offer a reasonably high amount that should be acceptable as is, rather than low balling and having a huge range for escalation.

Rent on a 1/1 here would range from 500-650.

I have seen some really nice houses in the ~$500k range, but I struggle to see how it would be profitable year-round.

It'll feel like drinking from a fire hose at first as you see how broad 'real estate investing' is as a topic, but there are a lot of great people here very knowledgeable on a broad range of topics and experts in nearly every market. 

The larger properties in the 100s of unit range tend to be owned by larger companies who have developed systems to maximize returns over the long run. 

I have been to several different REIs and there is significant participant, quality and focus diversity.