Make sure that alternative investments carry similar risks.

Just trying to see if there were other options I haven't considered or better alternatives....

As a custodian, they are prohibited by rule from providing any tax, legal or investment advice.An alternate format that is probably more efficient for the goals you stated is a plan offering checkbook control.  

Can you think of any alternatives?

Another alternative is leasing with a right of first refusal, which avoids most of the Safe Act and Dodd-Frank issues.

An alternative to being licensed in California is to be licensed in an alternative market.

It's not what I would prefer, but sometimes it is the alternative that gets you paid.

Take the long view and realize there are many necessary skills and techniques and processes you will need to learn and implement in order to actually create a business out of this.

I am trying to apply the basic analysis techniques I have learned about on BP, but I don't know what to use as the investment basis and property price.

Cozy sounds like a much better alternative.