Few questions on starting out

[Anthony B.]

I am going to start purchasing investment properties and before I do I am going to learn a lot of things.

First in question: When you were beginning did you form an LLC on your rental property? If not why? If you did, or did not, would you do it differently if you started from square one again?

Second: When did you form a corporation to hold your properties?

I know I did some reading on the property taxes. If I remember correctly that is 100% tax deductible on a rental property because it is thought of as a business expense? If I am right on that, must I have to form a business around the rental property in order to have this tax benefit?

I am also looking at ways to finance my first rental property. I heard that some banks will give a line of credit to beginning businesses. If this is true, what would be the case if I incorporated and asked for a line of credit to use as a down payment on a property? Is this smart? Would the bank just laugh or take me seriously?

Should I focus on going the seller-finance route?

Just to give you an idea of where I stand: I am 21, roughly 20k bad debt. I have done a lot of reading of real estate books like Trump and Kiyosaki, but book smarts doesn't cut it for me. So hopefully I can have all my questions that are unclear answered here.

Thanks for the time and I look forward to learning a wealth of information here!

-Anthony