I recently read a book that mentioned there being a lot of power and benefits of a personal corporation but I'm curious as to when a corporation is actually beneficial over the latter. 

I showed it through various other entity (which i own) bank accounts and they required those entities to be guarantors on the loan.

I own the home but it is an 1940’s built house that was moved to its current location in the 80’s.

There is no point in doing a 1031 exchange if you expect a loss from the transaction.A 1031 is meant to defer your gain.There are numbers which you can analyze and stress which is not easy to analyze.It looks like you are stressed with this investment and I would sell.I personally, however, would look to make the improvement for $10,000 to get one of the other units up and running.

I think the best thing to do would be to find a good-hearted person with a lot of experience and pick their brain.

And the simple act of owning 3-4 SF rather than 1 MF spreads your risk out as well.But before I get flamed for being the stodgy too conservative guy who ignores scale let me say that we have many many clients who will start out as SF investors. 

I think it's just for text, not to talk with a live person.

Start with your own house see how it goes.  

I currently use Wells Fargo and it’s a pain in the butt to keep going there in person and setting up a security deposit account.

Once we had the home inspection I was able to have the seller credit us at closing $8k...of which the escrow could not credit the entire amount and so I had the seller write up a personal check for $2000 How did you finance this deal?