•My California LLC serves as a holding company for my out-of-state LLCs that own the individual properties.This structure keeps things organized while ensuring compliance with both states’ regulations.As for your bonus question, it depends on how the property was purchased.

Credit scores are a reflection of someone's ability to learning and understanding the rules of the game and haveing the discipline to play by them.If you already have good credit, already pay everything on time (autopay), then increaseing your limits will probably help you the most, because it gets your utilization down, ideally under 10%.Higher hanging fruits are average credit and account age (just have to wait for that I guess) and inquiries, which are sometimes unavoidable as real estate investors.  

If you are new, you want the teaching type.You can hire individual specialists in asset protection, legal documents, estate planning, and so on, but my belief is that it's better to get that in a training program focused on real estate investing by investors. 

I am also looking to buy a few duplexes or triplexes for my own portfolio, so it would be ideal to start sending out letters to home owners in my area to see if I can find any off market.

What some ideal way to find investors to fund this deal?

@Yixuan Du I would recommend going to local Real Estate Investor meet ups in your market to meet like minded individuals like yourself who have already done what you want to do.

Developing a strong network of individuals who care about bettering themselves, their family, their communities and especially helping out anyone who wants to make more of themselves.

@Marian Smith@Lena TruongI have bought notes from them and the individual who runs AHP is well respected.

Private financing where an investor can get a loan from an individual rather than a conventional loan because you can get more leverage and have more room to negotiate

You'll need good contact info for them to be able to collect, and ideally the new address for the tenant however which if you don't have can probably be found easily with some online sleuthing/ contacting their employer, skip tracing software, etc.