Look forward to hearing form you!

Fortunately for me, I haven't yet. 

Of course, with all things, the answers to all these matters will depend on the circumstances.California tends to have more laws on the books and requirements and restrictions that it can be a good idea to form a CA LLC for out of state property so that you as a CA resident are covered, and to try to have your contracts fall under the purview of CA courts.

Unfortunately, Texas has a law prohibiting HELOCs on rental properties and I believe they also have a 70-75% max total loans allowed on the property which cuts into the equity I've built and would only allow for me to access 30K which would make it less appealing to go through the process for only 30K.

@Rud Sev Your Section 1231 losses from the sale of rental properties were likely correctly reported on Form 4797 (Part I) as ordinary losses, allowing them to offset all types of income.

Would this information being out there make it more likely for me to be linked to LLC and thus for anyone to try to "pierce it"?

If I need any of them to do anything extra for me, I just work out a payment for that one thing and pay them by action.

@Deborah Wodell: for me it really comes down to deal flow and returns.  

She has a lot of experience in various forms of property development but we have two great deals at the moment where we have been able to combine parcels of land to create a development project.

I was skeptical but they were impressive for me.