If your goal is to get experience an learn from it, it might make sense to start with an property that will expose you to more potential problems while you are at lease living there and can manage them closely.

In the past I pretty much did the traditional buy/sell deal, but not exposed to the creative side of REI.Initially I am targeting about $10K/month in income so I can fully devote my time in REI.Currently looking for a Mentor that would guide me through the initial stages of REI.

I am most excited about involving my 18 year old son who has high interest in real estate so exposing him to due diligence and all aspects of finding, analyzing, purchasing and managing rentals for short term but mostly long term hold investing principles.   

As others have said elsewhere, if you have W-2 employment, this is more considered side income/investments and is not exposed to SE tax.

Unless there is isolation between your investment property and your personal possessions and assets - even your other investment properties, they are now all exposed and at risk.That's why the $1MM recommendation on the umbrella policy.

I want to be exposed on how auctions work and what strategies people use in order to be the best bidder but still get the best prices on REO properties? 

my question is with a vacant element exposed building is the structure comprised and it likely is a teardown?

The members of an LLC are issued K-1 Form and have to pay taxes on all profits as though it were income, which could expose the owners to high employment taxes.

and depend only on umbrella insurance, remember that if your insurance has to pay out it means litigation was brought and you lost - your ENTIRE ESTATE is now exposed and at risk.

The objective is to expose the property to the market (Hence MLS) and mitigate any potential appearance of a non arm's length transaction (Hence the Realtor).