Best ways to close on off market deal

[Junior Hall]

Hello everyone. I'm fairly new to the bigger pockets community but have been listening to every podcast since around May of this year. I currently own 2 single family residence, 1 multi unit and am in the process of acquiring another single family. This current acquisition is with a seller whom I know fairly well as he was my neighbor, an elderly gentleman that simply wants to retire and cash out of the property after some family members of his completely trashed the place. When he purchased the property in 2017 he paid around $89k and though I don't have an exact payoff yet, owes around $67K currently. Back in May when we first spoke about me purchasing the property, the ARV was around $215k but now I'm guesstimating its probably at around $180K and I'm guessing that number because this property is a twin, and though it has a few more added features such as it being a corner property, finished basement, back yard and a deck, I own the attached property which appraised for $178k in December of 2021.

My initial thought was to assume the mortgage at its current rate (I've never done an assumption) and give him the remaining $40K+ in cash. However, the mortgage company informed us today that the loan is only assumable in the case of death or divorce and so I'm back to the drawing board on how to go about this. I could get a conventional loan but I doubt the property would pass an inspection in its current condition. I could use a hard money lender but not sure if that's necessary or even a wise choice because of the interest I would be paying out in the 4 months it would take to complete the renovations/repairs (I'm my own contractor for all repairs and I work solo, hard to find good help). I know there are other ways to do this, my cash for this project was limited to $60k for acquisition and repairs if the assumption had worked out but now I'm not sure what's the next best move. I should add that I plan on renting out the property as I build my portfolio, this wouldn't be a flip.

Secondly, after listening to episode 689, I've been searching for a good CPA, signed up for Avail and RentRedi to compare and purchased my QuickBooks account instead of using excel. My properties are not all just in my name. I have one property that's in my LLC and the others are all in my name. An attorney associate of mine suggested doing a quit claims deed to place the others in my LLC also, but does that make a huge difference from a tax perspective? He suggested because I asked if its possible to transfer the properties to my LLC while there are still mortgages on them.

As I stated before I'm new here so forgive me if I'm asking the obvious or haven't provided enough info. I can follow-up with any needed info, thanks in advance for any and all advice.

-JR