I do not personally use him based soley on the fact that the firm is virtual.

Are you referring to personal losses or other people had losses?

So, things change a bit.If it is his personal home, there are more restrictions.For an investment property, if you take over his financing, read through the deed of trust (mortgage) and see how they handle transfer of ownership.

Attend in person networking events in your area (there are many in and around Vancouver). 

The banks/credit unions said I needed 6 to 12 months of ownership to get refied. 

With enough knowledge you can make a educated decision on which approach you take.My experience:I personally don't sign up for any program who take you aside during events and try to sell packages that is just blatant sales strategy.Once you sign up there is every attempt to make you sign for their programs for bookkeeping, registered agent, LLC or corp setup fee which have ridiculous even with platinum membership.Basic standard structure they suggest to take advantage of multiple deductions can be easily achieved by proper education or work with a good firm like https://wcginc.com  who is local to you.A umbrella C-crop to manage all other LLC properties and take advantage of many tax deductions that are not available with a llc, its also used to take losses up to 100K as startup expenses and dissolve the entity after few years.Few LLC entities for investing in Real Estate, etc preferably in Wyoming or Nevada ( you can find many companies online who can do this for $150 compared to anderson $1500-$3000) , they will claim they have a secret Operating agreement which is bogus.They certainly try to take advantage of tax loopholes and claim to be smart people, my view they are just taking advantage of numbers as per their own statements.

Personally CA scares me. 

I have two books to recommend, one podcast, and then one more summit happening in person in May for syndication investors.

I personally have no connections with anyone who is involved in this niche and I'm wondering how other people have started their journey.

I wouldn’t personally recommend it, as office vacancy rates are currently quite high.