Those often give you the low-entry benefits with cleaner title. 

You’re absolutely right that out-of-state, low-price acquisitions carry execution risk, particularly around rehab control, tenant quality, and property management.To clarify, my intent was not to suggest that $20k is a universally “safe” entry point, nor to minimize the operational realities you outlined.

In the meantime I would search for a house hack as the barrier to entry is much lower. one does not affect the other

but rather "what income level and ownership structure would make cost seg actually usable?"

It's a little harder I'm sure in California, just because of the high price/cost of entry, then having a market that can appreciate/depreciate quickly depending on so many variables. 

I have software that does this as well - its not excel but there are a ton of benefits over excel, especially if you want to have multiple scenarios of the same asset, aggregate multiple assets into a fund, calculate complex equity waterfalls, integrate AI to automate data entry or write python scripts to do analysis (or have ChatGPT write it for you). 

So if house hacking with low down payment is the plan, FHA is often the first realistic re-entry point.For the first 24 months, if I were in your position, I’d focus on:1.

Your best first line of research is to compare their entry documents with the info in this document:Policy Guide - Travel Documents  This is a 2018 Document, I have not found a newer version, but obviously many matching documents are still in use and valid. 

That's a solid entry point.

Easier entry, strong demand, and it works great even out of state.