The reality of staying where I live is saving a large down payment (200k+) and continuing to work overtime every single month to make ends meet and provide a decent lifestyle for my family.

Someone smoking meth or shooting heroin in your property could do a ton of damage through the drugs themselves but also through the lifestyle that comes along with it...

This may require increasing his income for a short time working extra and cutting back on non-essential lifestyle things or improvements to the property, which isn't his yet.

(Although I don't know what it is like in LA)Even if you are able to increase the rent, that could happen at the expense of higher vacancy rates, further negatively impacting your cashflow in the short term.Based on the asking price of the seller, you will be subsidizing the lifestyle of your tenant.In my opinion, it is not a good deal.

those funds for short term high yield lending could be appropriate.. in reality that's how most HML companies work they have some sort of LOC  at a rate in the 5 to 6% rate and they loan at 10 to 15% apr and make the delta..now with 450k that won't exactly changed your lifestyle but it could bring you in an additional 30 to 40k a year with mitigated risk and no risk to tenants..

Owning a home is a lifestyle decision that will draw heavily on your saving ability.

It would be in another, cheaper state (PNW or SW) in an area that actually excites me more due to the landscape and lifestyle. 

My name is Alex and I first got interested in real estate at the end of 2017 when I realized I didn't want to drift into the "average" lifestyle I'd seen modeled by most of the people in my life. 

Concentrate on saving as much money as you possible can by living a frugal life style.

Also with no kids, you might want to consider renting untill you figure that part out, lifestyle, space, daycare/schools take on a different meaning then they do now.