its funny how this changes with time and the market on BP  if you asked this question 5 to 7 years ago you get drowned out with the cash flow is the ONLY thing and appreciation is for gamblers my self I have always been about making appreciation games in RE.. by either value add building a new product or buying foreclosure and flipping or lending money and getting instant 12% plus returns . 

Strong rental performance & return Lessons learned?

If they are professional, they can explain this quickly and easily.

So I offered to pay for the flight, if they returned a clean and empty house.

In return he will place the down payment, closing costs and IO payments during the HML.If the property is initially purchased by one LLC (Ours) and there is an active loan on the property, is it possible to register half of the property under the name of the investor's LLC as part of our model?

If you have a regarded tax entity, e.g. partnership, S Corp, C Corp, you need complete financials -- P&L and balance sheet to adequately prepare the tax returns and answer tax related questions. 

If there is an opportunity out there that you believe will provide you with better returns than what the stock market then yes buy real estate.

Logically we keep telling ourselves, we have the experience to easily make the transition but mentally there's a big difference when dealing with 100's of thousands of dollars on a single fam / duplex and millions of dollars on a 20+ unit property.

• Investing in High-Cost Markets: The Bay Area is an expensive market, but we’re open to exploring out-of-state opportunities if they provide better returns.

There are no tax deductions for such gifts, however you have a $15k per recipient annual gift limit that avoids the chore of filing a gift tax return.