Structuring asset protection

[Chad Oustalet]

How does everyone structure their future real estate business? I have 1 SFR rental I bought in 2019, bought it with a conventional 20% down under my own name. No LLC in place. I have no LLC, Corp, etc and no business account everything is done under my name. I am really wanting to knuckle down and purchase more rentals in more creative manners as well as explore a few flips if the numbers make sense.

Did you build your asset protection as you went or put all the pieces in place before starting? I don't know whether to hire someone to help structure business entities or hop on my SOS website and build it out myself.

Did you utilize an LLC, Corp, or some other entity or just doing it all in your own name? and if using an entity for your properties, do you set up an entity and bank account for each property?

Was a parent Corp or LLC used to manage other individual LLCs that owned the property? I have done a fair bit of research and have even been on a strategy call with a company that specializes in this specifically to maintain anonymity and keep personal property and business separate.

I don't want to put the cart before the mule here but to be perfectly honest I don't know which is the cart and which is the mule. 

Thanks in advance for any all advice and any direction you can point me