Are you referring to actual IRL staging furniture, or virtual staging?

California may still require reporting if you are actively managing them from here, but by that stage the cost is usually justified by the protection and tax benefits.I do not want you to feel discouraged.

Nothing wrong with parking the not-yet-invested portion in HYSA while you phase in.Gold vs HYSA for the staging money.Gold is a volatility asset, not a parking lot.

In practice, most operators (including platforms like PadSplit) operate successfully without specific licensing because these homes don’t fit the typical short-term rental model—average stays are often six to eight months rather than nightly or weekly.The benefits of this strategy are clear: it helps create affordable housing options in a market where affordability is increasingly scarce, and it fills a short-term housing need for working professionals, students, and those transitioning between life stages.

No, even in the early stages they did not.

The key is matching the type of funding to the stage of your flip: quick acquisition money, rehab money, and finally bridging to the exit strategy without over-leveraging.For someone like you, the takeaway is to build relationships with multiple sources of funding now.

I determined what I could pay and still hit my profit targets.That discipline at the acquisition stage is what created the $250K profit, not my renovation skills.The Next OneI bought another fourplex about a year ago using the same approach.

Is there anything I might be doing wrong at this stage?

If that’s the case, I would use excess savings towards investing in skills that will increase income in the next 5-10 years.

If you have a stage name for your SM presence etc, I'm sure a simple explanation would clear this up.