Help with transition personal home into first rental

[Ryan Carmichael]

Wanting to keep current townhouse and transition it into a rental unit and looking for some help with that process...

Unsure on the timeline of this occurring but wanted to get prepared as best as possible to pull the trigger if a good house in area I'm looking becomes available to purchase.

Townhouse which would be rented was built in 2005 so starting to appear a little dated and could use some updating (floors, cabinets, counters, etc).

Recommend creating LLC for property? Should that be done immediately before renting it out or any reason to go ahead and complete that process ahead of time while still living there?

Any benefit to performing renovation/updating now vs later? Could the expenses incurred in updating property help from a tax standpoint one way or another?

Any other recommendations which I may be overlooking that would be helpful in this new process?

Thanks for the help