Newbie in Middlesex County - to LLC or not to LLC?

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Hello everyone on BP! 

My name's Richard, I'm currently researching and networking before investing in Middlesex County of beautiful New Jersey. I'm new to real estate investing and am currently debating whether or not it is worth it and/or beneficial to set up an LLC before getting started. My plans are to do buy & hold with a partner but we are also not ruling out flips if the opportunity comes across us.

Is it too early to be thinking this? Should I do my first deal and then consider it? 

Any advice is greatly appreciated, really love the community here and all I've learned thus far.

P.S. if you're local, shoot me a colleague request!

Thanks everyone.

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@Steve Vaughan, 

Thanks so much for the quick reply. I'm going to look into Tenants in Common with a Joint Venture, seems it fits best for what we plan to do regarding buy & hold. As far as flipping goes... I'm imagining my partner and I would want to go together on this as well, would we use an LLC for that?