The duplex I bought would have come in at the appraised value at the time I bought it, but they were now valuing it the same as if I had done no work and disregarding any work that was put into it.

A single member LLC is considered to be a "disregarded entity" for tax purposes, which means they ignore the entity for tax purposes and treat the property as if it was purchased by you as an individual.

Disregard my bad math in the example of physical vacancy in my earlier post.

Honestly I usually disregard posts like this and view them as more like spam or deals that aren't really worth wasting time on, but in this case I knew the person and posted back "Hey why don't you just contact us directly" and that night while I was at the beach with my family he did.  

That displays forethought and a concern for one's neighbor - not wanton disregard..Provided that your water gathering gutter subsequently directs water to avoid his roof - I have a hard time imagining that you are causing him any harm.

Without that, your LLC will also be disregarded.

@Brooklyn R.Completely disregarding the very real reasons why RUBS does not work in all markets. 

An attorney and I discussed a structure of an S Corp that holds liquid funds and then two 'disregarded' LLC entities that actually hold the properties.

This includes determining whether their interest is held individually or through an entity like an LLC or corporation. 2) Even if you don't have a tax liability, you will generally be required to file a U.S. tax return in addition to a state return in many cases. 3) If title is being held individually (or through an LLC as a disregarded entity), you need an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (“ITIN”).

I really like the old SMART goal acronym (see below) but it gets a little murky when it comes to real estate investing because of the multi-dimensional nature of our favorite asset class.For example, many investors list goals in terms of the number of units they want to own but the problem is that that doesn't necessarily lead to an income or wealth goal because there are so many ways to finance or structure the deal and rent – to – value ratio (RV ratios) vary dramatically based on geography and price range.I think the best way to approach this is to set in overall portfolio value goal and an income goal related to that overall asset value while disregarding financing options, at least initially.