Learn to scope out the repairs/issues from tenants to determine if it is a major or minor item. 

@Chris ButlerI do $20 card for a pizza place with their welcome basket of useful items and $50 at Christmas.

The major Cap Ex items you identified are a concern.

@Bill Hampton I am not trying to avoid taxes, but I am certain that California will charge fees for stuff like maintaining registration for an LLC or storing records for the entities and those fees might be different for different types of entities.

For example, if a new roof would cost $15,000 and last for 30 years (both completely hypothetical numbers), then you'd need to save $41.67/month just for that one item. 

I am close to putting a gas station / convenience store / liquor store under contract

Once you do that, HM and HELOC's become a back burner item for you.Good luck.

Besides, you'll need someone to point out all of the FHA required items that must be corrected to meet FHA MPS/MPR.

Those are 2 different items.

I once bought a pre-foreclosure where I really felt for the seller, I gave them a seller carryback note and stored a bunch of their stuff when I didn't have to.