I even say do this if you can live in your parents house for free because you never know when that could change and /learning self sufficiency is worth something. 

Rental income is passive in it's nature and won't be sufficient for you to qualify for Solo 401k.

Using your example of Civic, do you know if the individual loan originators need NMLS license in CA, or is it sufficient that that company is Licensed and that covers the LO's?

major items that would vastly change the value of the property with improper underwriting:1) not accounting for tax adjustment after sale.

The vast majority of lawsuits against Landlords are for wrongful eviction, security deposit disputes, and Fair Housing Violations.

If you have good credit and sufficient income and the deal has really strong cash flow a lot of these places will do up to 85% LTV but I have not seen anything less than 15% down lately for a DSCR of that size.

Or is it sufficiently affluent that many send their children to charter/private schools and the public schools are suffering further decline as a consequence? 

Also, just because you have saved up a sufficient cash reserve does NOT mean you should exclude cap ex or vacancy.The aim of an investment is to increase your net worth.  

As Anthony mentioned, your normal homeowners policy wont be sufficient.

And in the vast majority of cases, you are never going to collect a dime from a deadbeat tenant.