You'll walk away with a fantastic base level understanding of why and how to do larger multifamily properties.As to where . . . the good news is this:  when your reference point is SoCal then you've got nothing but "better" to find in terms of numbers. 

The only concern with that is I wanted to have some higher end finishes in the upper level (mainly appliances and glass enclosures on stairs) that would be subject to a higher degree of wear and tear with a tenant. 

NO emotions here, strictly math.By pure happenstance, we ran into a different property that seems to make sense financially, but is a little more scary then we thought we were ready for.Local to us, a commercial/residential building is for sale. 4 store fronts street level, 2 apartments upstairs, and 1 large unit upstairs that needs a little rehab to be leased out, as it was occupied on and off by the owners kids for many years.The 4 retail units, and the 2 residentials are all spoken for with good leasing history.

And curious what age of property and level of rehab you are comfortable handling?

I cross check that against what my realtor and other local folks I have relationships with tell me about where the neighborhood is trending, as well as rent-o-meter and searching for high-level rental data/trends.

Yes, you can make money on new builds - that's why there's contractors out there building houses - but it tends to be either on economy of scale, or with knowledge/experience/contact levels that allow you to compete as a small builder.

@David DeLancey  Hard / Private money is probably going to be the way to go as pot is still illegal at the federal level. 

Sometimes seeing a home while its raining is a great thing.Inside 1. level floors(some sloping is natural in older homes) 2. lay out.

I do at another site, but it hasn't asked me for tax info (what I read is that it is ONLY for processed payments, and at that 10K level, so not sure what the 600 is about).

I looked into hiring a property manager to do exactly what you are looking for and couldn't find anyone who wanted to do it to the level I was looking for.