Logical Next Steps

[Tom Lacey]

Hello everyone,

This is officially my first post on BP.  I listen to 2 or 3 podcasts a day and I am looking for some direction on the next steps we should be taking.  

I am planning to buy a multi family property in Pittsburgh that I plan to BRRR. For this first property, I will be investing with my close friend who lives in Chicago (I live in Pittsburgh). He is a VP at a large consumer office products company and I am a project manager at a Fortune 100 Medical products company. So, two W2 employees with families, owning our primary residences. We both have money available for the down payment and initial repairs (We have both committed $50K each at this point, but this could adjust if the right deal comes along).

Question #1 - I know everyone has an opinion on LLC's. Could you give me some pro's and cons based on the information above?

Question #2 - In the future, we may be looking for private lenders to invest in larger properties. Does that have any impact on how we set things up at this stage? Would an LLP make more sense?

Question #3 - We may look to pulling money out of our self directed IRA's. I would be the primary property manager. How does that affect how we set things up? I think I have read about the fact that the investor using self directed IRA's cannot be directly involved with the property management.

Question #4 - If we were to pull money out of our primary residences with a HELOC, how would that affect things?

I appreciate any of you taking the time to give me some general guidance at this early stage in my Real Estate Investment career.  If there are other posts that answer the majority of my questions, I apologize for not doing an exhaustive search.