Local and regional banks offer HELOC products with all sorts of different terms.Moving on...Keeping $100K in the bank isn't a terrible proposition right now.

There is nothing inherently right or wrong with investing out of your area but whether it makes financial sense will depend on the specific investment thesis/value proposition you are pursuing. 

A water heater costs the same for a tiny house or a larger house, yet you have less rental income.All in all this is a high risk proposition, if you are looking to curb your risk as an out of the country investor I suggest buy a quality property in a decent neighborhood.

Is the presentation and the value proposition as good as it can be?

However, if Proposition 21 passes in November it will replace CH law and I don't believe Prop 21 has any principal place of residence requirement.

If you are focused on the $120K gross/year, you may reach for propositions with a lot more risk (kinda what those "do nothing and get rich" guys teach).You take bigger risk with less experience and rely on the kindness of strangers, your odds aren't very good.Get experience first.

Rockstar agents know (and constantly improve) their value proposition / competitive advantage, know their target market, and know their avatar client.

The national average pre-COVID, FYI, was 9%.and last but not least, a profit reduction coefficient of negative (300k * ((mortgage interest rate) +(2nd home interest rate modifier))...Aka interest on a 300k loan.Again, the debt service is accounted for in the cashflow neutral proposition.

When looking at the opportunity to increase NOI through decreasing expenses the ability to bill back water/ utilities to the tenants clearly looks like a winning proposition.

It's a more beneficial proposition from the politician's standpoint to appeal to the 4 tenants (4 votes) than to one "greedy" Landlord who the politician knows will continue to pay their property taxes, etc regardless of whether the tenants pay rent or not.