Depending on your experience level and sales ability, you could form a limited partnership and raise the money. 

When you form a Partnership the best type keeps you in control and makes all Partners involvement and ownership variable.When you purchase them, at least 32 units will enable you to hire a Property Management Company and do the daily operations.

@Thomas D. if I understand correctly, you and your uncle are going to form a conspiracy to falsely inflate the value of your properties for the purpose of taking loans from a bank in amounts larger that would be allowed if not for the artificial inflation.  

Frickin squirrels cost me thousands on that property and trust me "squirrel repair" was NOT a line on the pro-forma!

Do we form a trust (would this be redundant with the LLC)?

As a realtor for the past 10 years, I have helped hundreds of Chicagoland landlords rent and manage their properties. -- I even wrote a "Landlord Tips" book which is well received by landlords, especially since it is ...

You should buy based off of the current cap rate, not the pro forma in this case because of rent control.

Don't just accept the pro forma numbers.

Ideally, I'd like to form a relationship with a person or company that I trust.

I'd love to reinvest all the money I have in there, but it would cut my pro forma cash flow by 2/3 and give me almost no buffer if I needed to drop rents at any point over the life of the mortgage.