In terms of your 11 properties, from what I understand, and I’m obviously still learning, it becomes a numbers game where you need to get a large number of doors to wash out vaccancies/repairs because you have enough cash flow from performing properties to mitigate the handful that are vacant or need a repair.

Plus you want the equity and the cash flow and the nicely renovated home, so you mitigate your long term expenses such as maintenance and tenant turn-over expenses.

The roof/reframing job won't add value, just mitigate to mold and future issues.

Do you consider this area very risk-mitigated for developers or risky? 

One of the best ways to mitigate risk is to buy a solid property.

It's all about mitigating your liability risk. 

I mitigate the unknowns associated with the rehab in a couple of different ways:1.

Partial asset dispositions can significantly mitigate recapture since there's no recapture for retired assets, and if a 1031 exchange is used to exit capital gains and recapture are further deferred until sale without a 1031 exchange. 

Obviously it reduces or even eliminates your housing costs, it mitigates risk because you subsidize your monthly costs of homeownership (principal, interest, taxes, and insurance (aka PITI) and maintenance).

So, if you create an LLC in another state, you will likely need to register it as a foreign LLC in California and have it be publicly searchable, which may mitigate any benefits from other states.