Specifically I am trying to figure out the best vehicle through which to conduct our REI.

Its up to you the investor to realize this before you invest in these kind of vehicles. 

@John McKeeHi John, I can give a brief high level overview.A Delaware Statutory Trust (DST) is a passive investment vehicle that is generally used for real estate investing.

Long term buy and hold RE in good locations is probably one of the lowest risk investment vehicles IMO, similar to blue chip aristocrat stocks except even less risky because even long-established companies can go out of business but real estate very, very rarely ever goes to zero. 

Guns done kill  people do.. well sub 2 does not kill sellers the people that do sub 2 with bad intent with not enough money etc etc they are the ones killing the sellers the sub 2 is just the vehicle that led to financial mortality for sellers in a sub 2 gone bad scenario.. and U cant have thousands of students who you know for certain have neither the capital or character to pull these off safely for the Seller..

We see it all the time with the conversations on what cars/vehicles folks drive :) here in BP there is a badge of honor to drive a 20 year old 250k mile car/truck :) Myself I saw my dad do some of this although he never got to the utra wealthy stage by a long shot but made good money in RE however it was not until he bought old style timeshare in Maui that he would finally take a vacation..

If you want to be completely self-sufficient, you're willing to build an Earthbag home or another building that can be earthquake proofed but can still be run without public utilities, you can spend a ton of money on a well and can have that well water processed to remove contaminated mine crap, you have a great off-road vehicle and you can figure out how to deal with the flooding without redirecting that water onto someone else's land then you can definitely live there.If it's an Investment you're after, give that up.

Yes, I learned through the BP podcasts that these vehicles are out there. 

I would not envy investors who participate in this vehicle when the team has not track record of success with it. 

One was the steps were a few inches off of code in height, and the railing broke when the guy fell.