Investing in rent controlled areas - smart or bad move?

[Brandon Cristiano]

Hi Everyone - long time lurker here on BP but really am hoping to get y'alls perspectives on potentially investing in rent controlled cities like Oakland or Berkeley, CA. My gf and I are 1st time home buyers in the Bay Area and are looking for a 2-4 unit property (owner occupied) to jumpstart our RE investing journey. 

If you're familiar with the Bay Area RE market, you'll know that rent control is a popular thing in the area. I'm not totally against buying something in these rent controlled areas but we've been giving advice that we should avoid at all costs. However, the supply in the Bay is limited and a lot of MF properties in the Bay come from Berkeley/Oakland. 

Any advice, input, perspective would be greatly appreciated as we continue on in our search. Has anyone found success with investing in rent controlled areas over the long term? What creative solutions did you use to become successful? What about any failures? 

Hoping this sparks a conversation and I'm sure other RE investors in the Bay Area are considering the pros/cons here as well. 

Thank you!