You could take your equity, buy a couple of homes out of state, have a management company take care of them and you'd have a very positive cashflow, for years to come...no earthquake issues, no lawsuits (hopefully)...etc... 

Listening to a relatively recent BP Podcast I recall hearing the interviewee talk about buying properties online via auction but that you have to be careful because some of them (Auction.com he called out specifically) will bid against you in house.

Obviously cash flow is much higher but so are a lot of other variables like your property being taken care of, rent collect, etc.  

Remember their goal is to sell, they typically don't care what happens after sale.

If care to share what’s your prime targets.

We are under contract on a SFH that has mold in the basement but is otherwise very well cared for.

It's called "clouding the title" and you could easily be sued if not careful.

She can't take care house.

I'm curious why this even matters and why you care what the tax ramifications are to the seller if you're the buyer? 

Finally, my hard money lender does not require seasonality, and they don't care about debt to income ratio.