To briefly summarize our situation - we formed an LLC (may have jumped the gun a bit here), pooled together roughly $50k cash, and began the search.

@Bruce Woodruff the guy they cited has a company called Reventure Consulting and has a bunch of videos on YouTube…to summarize his content, the entire industry of real estate is in an utter free fall and he’s predicted a depression-level collapse for a couple of years now.

I appreciate your responses and I agree.Would you advice signing a simple agreement summarizing the issue and that payment?

I am still confused about two cap rates - the one to be calculated for each property and the one that real estate agent can provide for local market.I believe Russell summarized it quite well with his comment: "The reason places like Boston and DC will have low cap rates is because two things are likely to occur....strong appreciation and strong rent growth".

@Matthew SwisshelmCongrats on your planning, does sound like a good plan.To summarize, looks like you are doing a back-to-back VA loan house hacking (so no money down) correct?

The real interest rate (for me) figures into the cash-flow and has a material impact on the ROI and, this, impacts my offer.To summarize, no I've never been asked to pre-qualify.  

You'll also need different "types" of credit, but in an attempt to keep this short I'll summarize.

Thanks again to all three of you.Sorry if I seem like I haven't gotten this exactly, but I first want to summarize my takeaways. 

Summarize in 10 bullet points or less.

So, to summarize here are the two options that I can come up withOption 1 - If you want asset protection you can buy in an LLC(for each property) BUT can only get commercial loans that reset every 5/10 years with 20-25 year loan term.