So we agreed on an external home inspection and external home appraisal. 

Performed external walkthroughs and get rent receipts and reviewed the leases. 

Don't succumb to external pressures because of your age. 

If you're needing to cover external maintenance then you'll definitely want to add more in your maintenance expense estimates

But I don't want the assets to be concentrated into one city/property management (that's only good for them) ; but we build the portfolio in multiple cash-flowing/appreciating cities.we already have good future appreciation projection before we buy based on external market research, Columbus is just one of them.We've to invest OOS , In our local market, one million could only buy a ruined property LOL :)

So the longer it takes you to get your cash back from the "paid for equity", the more that cash is sitting dead...and NOT returning a $5 on the $1.Oh, and if you insist on percentages, that's not a 20% Internal RR, it's a 500% External RR. 

Brian,Oftentimes hard money lenders will use AMCs (Appraisal Management Companies), and then double-check the value against their own internal underwriting.In a unique situation, the appraiser can take a look at comparable properties (property type, size, proximity, etc.) and then make the appropriate adjustments to the value.Some hard money lenders put a lot of stock in external appraisals, and others less so.Oftentimes, if you strongly disagree with the ARV that the lender has arrived at, then you can submit rebuttal comps, and I have seen cases where a lender adjusts the ARV based on the rebuttal comps, although this adjustment is not particularly common.Hope this helps,Michael

My two cents: if you make less than $100k a year through the "business", go disregarded entity or sole proprietorship.If you make more than that, onboard a tax professional as an external partner on your team that can do the analysis and have the conversation with you.Do not elect S just because an you've read an article which happens to focus only on the SE tax savings. 

I have been in external sales my whole career and you might have been able to tell from the post but I am not a systems or spreadsheet guy. 

Yes, we definitely need both internal and external documents drawn up with legal input on all the aspects you mentioned including repairs and maintenance, distribution, buy out terms, etc.