Reading between the lines she could lose all her 401k and still be set for retirement?  

Listing agents don't care.

The best source of funding is subjective because it's going to vary based on what's important to you.Do you care more about the terms?

The pre screen took care of most of riff raff and the 25$ application fee took care of the rest.

Especially trampolines, I’ve read that insurance companies ban them in the policy due to a lot of claims. 

We don’t know any PMCs to recommend in the area mentioned, but since selecting the wrong PMC is usually more harmful than selecting a bad tenant, you might want to read our series about “How to Screen a PMC Better than a Tenant”:https://www.biggerpockets.com/member-blogs/3094/91877-how-to-screen-a-pmc-better-than-a-tenant-part-1-services-and-processesWe recommend you get management contracts from several PMCs and compare the services they cover and, more importantly, what they each DO NOT cover.

As long as you qualify, most banks won't care if you do or don't own your own home first. 

Just be careful.  

If you go to the clerk's office you can read the actual foreclosure file and at least see when the last payment was made from the initial complaint.....then you can guess at accumulated interest, late fees, any taxes or force placed insurance, attorney fees, court costs, etc.

SoCal CAP rates do seem to be 5% from the redfin descriptions I read on some of them.I'd much rather buy a 1 million dollar SFH in north county than a 1 million dollar 4 unit in a low income neighborhood.