We literally post in our rental listings "Must be able to pay rent with a bank account - Owner does not collect rent in person" as a way to try to avoid tenants that want to pay in cash.  

There is also the issue of who a beneficiary is behind the ploys of using family or entities, who benefited from that note, if you and your wife have a joint account, your spouse isn't really a separate person as you have marital interests. 

As far as the 'pre-existing relationship', would I be correct in thinking for example if I heard a Syndicater on a BP Podcast, then I contacted them, maybe met in person a time or two to talk business and get to know them, conversed on the phone about real estate a dozen times over a year or so, that that would at least be a needed start where I could then ask then about current opportunities? 

If person A invests $50k passively into a syndication worth $10 million and person B invests $100k passively in a deal worth $1 million; person A is truthfully an investor in a $10 million asset however person B has more equity in their deal etc.

I also recommend doing the class online and not in person as you can go much much faster.

@Joseph M. as it relates to real estate investments within an Opportunity Zone, you would need to double your basis in the property within 30 months. 

I ran all this by my accountant and he told me not to worry about it, unless you’re a person as described above.

The only issue is more time goes closer to X-mas, which makes it progressively harder to find tenants for a 3/2 premium rental. 

If the contractor is doing the repairs to the adjacent units the cost to scale doing your repair will be less than anyone else you can talk to as well as the contractor can use approved repair costs by the other carriers if any one of them wants to offer less than is needed to do the job.Also if the contractor's estimate is already approved to repair the other units than I don't see a reason to hire an independent adjuster and give that person a share of your claim proceeds unless your carrier digs in and won't pay what is nedded to make the repairs. 

One flip could classify person A as a dealer whereas it could take 100 flips to classify person B as a dealer.