Most of the suburbs median price is fast approaching 1 million mark.

So far have used expensive HM loans - 9-12%.

I have heard of horror stories where asking for forgiveness rather than permission in this permit arena causes undoing and redoing the work (with a permit, this time) with great expense in time and $ if the city inspector decides that this or that is not up to code.

The 25% is meant to cover maintenance, vacancy, and other expenses.

While I've done a lot of research and feel comfortable accounting for expenses while vetting properties, I haven't done a ton of research and on how to estimate what I could charge for rent.

However, in CA with the annual franchise tax of $800, additional LLCs are relatively expensive.

Never tried it myself, but I like the idea of doing tile above a one-piece shower/tub surround in a rental.It gives you the option of going with a higher end/more expensive tile since you're using less than if you tile the whole surround, and it seems to be a "tenant proof" option since it's less likely to get dirty or damaged.Some examples: 

A reverse can be much more complicated and expensive and may not be worth it for a $75k to $100k deal.  

They do this and not CAP rates because they don't have access to all of the necessary expenses to calculate an accurate NOI.

Currently, after taking care of all expenses, it is providing about $1400 positive cashflow per month.