I actually got my start in a similar fashion.

For the long-term tenants we serve (many whom are low-income and fixed-income) the old fashion method of mailing in their rent works well.

Profits are also divided in the same fashion.

I carry a sheet of old fashioned paper and a pencil and mark what needs to be done as I go through.

Some may have a different business model that would drive them to set their entity structure up differently because they're hedging risk in a different fashion because of their business model.  

What's wrong with the old fashioned pen and paper? 

In my experience I have found that if you treat your tenants with respect and ensure that all reasonable repairs are completed in diligent fashion people have no reason to go.

I contacted a couple of my old reliable ones best transactional fundingwas one of them but they haven't gotten back to me in a timely fashion

Now I don't want to use the old fashion ones where I have to go around and read them and bill, that's a job.

If you're comfortable with the risk implicit in financing your long-term inventory in this fashion because you have access to liquidity or are willing to stomach refinance and/or foreclosure risk then you're probably fine using the procedure with trusts.