I’ll try to keep this as short as possible but I am at a cross road in life here and can’t seem to find the guidance I need. 

I have a couple of investments and am about to jump into a Short term rental while still being a w-2 employee.

As @Brett Synicky suggested, keep it simple, as a sole proprietorship.You are also not considering that you will have to pay $800 per year and per LLC to your greedy state.In short, get some professional advice instead of TikTok advice.

The question if such leverage is utilized can he weather any deflationary period?

My favorite source is Navy Federal for its long draw period of 20 years, and Figure for its fast funding.  

In general these are either growth markets or markets short housing that has significant hurdles to adding additional housing. 

However, in my short time I’ve found that tenant deception is by far the toughest part.

@Jon Martin  I agree and in short term its just not worth what you will get in reviews for something like this. 

@Karen SmithAs jay mentioned private lending has been around forever and it’s really not on the rise - I think it’s always been a large player in the real estate investment space for short term loans.

Doing short-term rentals would be very interesting.