I decided to buy the property from my grandfather using a gift of equity, which allowed me to take over ownership without having to come up with the full down payment and pay for the tax lien and his closing costs.

Again I cannot collect rent to justify this cost/effort.  

At this time I manage and renovate majority of all my units to keep cost low but most likely not the best use of my time although I'm skilled at it.

If you no longer have business operations in the old state, forming a new LLC in the new state and dissolving the old one may simplify compliance and tax obligations.Some states impose franchise taxes and annual fees that could make one option more cost-effective than the other.

We currently work with many clients who do Cost Segs and using that STR loophole!

Avoid going for the cheapest properties, as those often come with higher turnover and more property wear-and-tear.Rental Rates vs.

Also factor in if the rents jumped a lot and if that would lead to a vacancy, which will cost you more in the short term. 

Hi Chris, As financing costs will be a big factor in determining profitability, you should be asking HMLs for proposals to fund. 

Imagine making millions of dollars over the course of your career and then having to pay 30-50% every year to uncle sam instead of compounding that cash over time.This is exactly what real estate professionals have learned to mitigate.To reduce their taxable income, they just buy a building every year, do a cost seg, and use depreciation to reduce their tax liability dramatically.Their personal wealth snowball grows much larger and much faster than their W2 counterparts who give most of their money back to the government each year.Following this strategy as a real estate professional is one of best ways to end up with a much larger net worth at the end of your career.

There's other items such as this where it may be helpful to talk to a CPA/EA for a little tax planning, especially since you'll likely get caught up in the passive activity loss limitations if taking bonus on a single rental property as I often see.It's also useful to mention that even if you do the cost seg study (I'm assuming you're doing one to be talking about this), you'll still benefit from accelerated depreciation in the form of shorter useful lives on the assets where you received bonus from.