My traditional mortgage buddy told me to say it was purely for investment purposes in order to simplify the process.

We added a new roof, completed repainted the interior and exterior, added backslash in the kitchens, updated appliances, brought the insulation up to code, updated fixtures throughout, and cleaned up and simplified the landscaping.

You could simplify some of your life by having more than one property in a LLC, assuming your financing allows it.Another is to have a set of "property LLC's" that just hold Title to the property. 

I prefer it because it gives me full control of the asset, it doesn't require any extra entities that need separate accounting and simplifies buying and selling, because property is free and clear.

I am currently pursuing my broker's license and training to become a property manager to simplify owners' lives. 

(app wouldn’t let me scroll)...To try to simplify the cash flow, you could create a separate “mgt LLC” that has an agreement with “property LLC” that just holds Title.

In some cases you can actually make a  profit  from real estate rentals and yet take a loss on your tax return due to the "Depreciation" This is the basics simplified.

Everything I read seems to emphasize making sure to accurately and completely estimate your costs up front to make sure you're dealing with a good investment, but so many people's estimates seem to simplify the costs to only recurring monthly and highly predicatable costs like taxes and utilities....etc. 

But for deals that are "basic" (I could just be over simplifying this) should I just keep hoping to find a HML that will give me a chance and keep networking and hope I find a PML or is there something else I can focus my efforts own?

Keep records for everything, it will simplify your life in the long run. ie, keep mileage logs, keep all receipts for all real estate related purchases, etc.Regarding "active participation" I think the above poster was confused on that when he referred to 50% of your time.