Mom & Pop.. not Trump

[Jay J.]

Hello Tax experts!  I have a question.  (and I know nothing about RE taxes)

I'm sure most people have heard the latest headline about D. Trump and his (almost) a billion dollar loss that (presumably) he carried forward to avoid taxes. So, with that in mind..

Say you're a small time "Mom & Pop" type investor. Maybe you have less than 10 properties that you self manage.  You carry some debt on the properties (for the sake of argument, we'll say %50) and they generate decent CF income. 

Is there anything about what Trump (presumably) did that the 'average mom & pop' investor can take advantage of? Would the owner of said properties need to have them in a LLC? or something else? is there a dollar amount / # of properties that needs to be reached??

Obviously, not on that scale, and I'm not looking to screw my local municipality out of tax money (I honestly have no issue paying taxes), but what are some of these 'little known tricks & loopholes' that apparently only the rich know about. 

I hope this even makes sense, and I'm sorry if this question is super broad. :-/