I suspect investors don't get drawn in as much by imagining themselves drinking tea in the nicely decorated living room because they don't plan on living there.Anyway, as a user (and believer) of staging in the past, I'm happy to help answer any of your questions from the consumer side.

It'll be nice having you around.

It's nice to meet everyone here.

We want to buy in a nice neighborhood but the ones with the most favorable numbers seem to be in the rougher 'hoods.

Nice!

Eventually I'd like to have enough rental properties (an apartment complex would be nice!)

yea 2weeks or less, you need a nice list of investors that you can count on.

Now, if there are other legal ways for me to improve my tax situation, of course that would be nice but with only 2 properties at this point, it hasn't been worth my effort to really investigate.Obviously I'm not even close to a CPA or a Lawyer but would gladly take free advice on how to save myself a few bucks...

You seem to need a name.The search in our state gives you the option of searching all N/TR SALE documents for a specific time period.

I've recently become a real estate investor in SoCal and am excited to be doing something like this.I have a nice rental property right now and am always on the lookout for the next big deal...