Yes, as I said in my prior post (which I made as a hard money lender myself) ...develop relationships with hard money lenders--especially those who are/were long-time landlords and house flippers themselves and who thoroughly understand the types of projects you want to do because they've done those projects themselves--so that you have lenders who will make the loan without requiring any money down, without cash reserves, and without written scopes of work.

I think it is unlikely Torrance was such a location (as there was only a few in southern CA) but do not remember for sure.Building a single small unit is the most pensive residential development costs.Add the other issues with ADUs especially in Ca and ADU additions are typically a poor investment.  

Now I own a mortgage company and a real estate development/NPL business.

We encourage all our investors to budget for working with an experienced property manager as they can keep you compliant, handle the tasks you would prefer a professional do, take care of the maintenance and unit turns, and should add value with their service and experience.Buying a duplex and living in one unit or renting out rooms in a single family house is a good way to get started as it requires less down or look for a value add duplex you can refinance shortly after making improvements.We help investors do this in Michigan.To Your Success!

The real value is task reminders, follow-ups, and tagging seller motivations. 8.

If the economics don't work or if you risk getting whipsawed by one owner with scale, no amount of enticement can make a bad investment perform good. agreed.. developments that are 100% rentals unless there is strong controls on the front yards IE HOA type situation. they can look pretty ratty in a few years. 

@Grant Shipman you may want to remove this line, "I've developed, use with all my coliving properties, and teach HPM (household-led property management)" as it appears to be self-promotion.

If you are far away, you cannot reliably confirm site conditions after a storm, assess whether a vendor actually showed up, or intervene quickly when a situation develops.

If he has to do all that he is going to be resentful unless you are taking on other tasks of similar You should look into off market deals, tax sales, fsbos, and some on market properties. 

In practice, a manager can handle day-to-day execution (guest messaging, cleaners, routine issues), but the owner needs to perform and document meaningful owner-level work—pricing and policy decisions, vendor selection/oversight, approving repairs and invoices, listing strategy, bookkeeping/financial reviews, and compliance tasks—because if the manager logs more hours than you, the “100+ hours and more than anyone else” test becomes difficult.