The OP is not a newbie.So here is what I believe about the San Diego market:Historically it has produced outstanding long-term returns. 

If you've ever bought a house for yourself, you probably didn't put together a spreadsheet of all the costs of home ownership (if you did, you're way ahead of the rest of us) - a SFH doesn't normally produce income, so it will always be in the negative.

If you are a real estate agent without a portfolio of your own buy/hold investments, please don't solicit to me.Not sure this idea is going to produce any sort of interest, but hey, it's what I have to offer :)

The high LTV results in even low appreciation producing outstanding returns. 

Most lenders in the commercial space don't really look at you as much as the property and the income it produce.

The right steps done repeatedly will produce the right results, period.  30 isn't "late to the game" unless you spend a lot of time of Insta and TikTok (which makes it feel like 22 is late to the game sometimes), but rather you are in a great position. 

I recently saw an article on here about Maximizing ROI on renovations, and while the article was super helpful, it got me thinking: what specific renovations have you found produce the most bang for your buck?  

Hi guys,I'm looking to make my first property purchase in PA and I'd like it to be income producing.

The first one was turnkey, I haven't had to put a dime into it yet and it is producing a monthly cash flow of $475.

If they can't produce a spreadsheet / chart of insights, quickly, then it's not going to be of great use unless you are a large entity with the funding and timeline that come with a proper machine learning operation.