It was easy to find a house I wanted to renovate and live in because I didn't have to factor in the closing costs at resale when I was making a decision but now that I want to do this for a profit I have not been able to find a property on the MLS that is priced low enough to make sense for a flip.

Are you selling LV and taking profits to Florida?

A couple of points on this deal: 1) If a wholesaler bought it for $3500 and couldn't make money with it, what is different about you and how you would profit when he could not?

Why not assume more control with your money and more profits by doing deals on your own?

And of course, base and greedy as it is, I also keep my mouth hole shut because it wouldn't be particularly profitable to bring all of this up with my tenants.So I would try to bring this up non-judgmentally with your tenant in a phone call or face-to-face before you send that letter.

I fixed it up and sold for a nice profit.

The trust does not disperse any profit to beneficiaries. 

Rent controlled units sell for less because one of the primary profit sources of Coastal So Cal buy n hold RE is rent appreciation. 

https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Profits-Beginners-essentials-mortgage-ebook/dp/B06Y4C7X6Y/ Finally, check out NoteMogul which has a very reasonably priced intro course to note investing They have a great self-paced starter course for under $500 that I think provides the basic info which let's you learn what you don't know to further your education.   

I do feel we will be able to profit off an immediate sell, but will not be as much as we initially hoped for.