I currently work full time in the corporate finance world and my wife and I are expecting our second daughter next month.I found BiggerPockets a few months ago by way of listening to the audiobook of Set For Life by Scott Trench on a long road trip and it ignited my interest in real estate as a tool to reach financial freedom.  

Lender requires funding be to a corporation, LLC. 

(B) "Real estate" includes leaseholds as well as any and every interest or estate in land situated in this state, whether corporeal or incorporeal, whether freehold or nonfreehold, and the improvements on the land, but does not include cemetery interment rights.

Corporate structures, get the help from an attorney or do some reading entities and structures. 

@Chris MartinFirst, I presume that (i) you are referring to w-2 wages earned from your self-employment activity (e.g. you have a single-member LLC taxed as an S-corporation through which you are providing goods and/or services); and (ii) you do not have any full-time w-2 employees (i.e. working 1000 hours or more per year) working for the self-employed business or otherwise. 

Other factors include large corporations and non-profits dumping money into the local community.

Unfortunately with iBuyers like ZillowOpen, OpenDoor, and more - many properties that were good finds for investors are now being purchased with cash by these deep-pocket corporations and warehoused.I recommend finding a realtor who works with investors to add bench strength to your search.

Corporations with an S election are taxed the same. 

I ended up buying the LLC Master Machine.As an introduction, I am an attorney myself; my practice area focuses on business entity formations and governing documents, i.e. operating agreements for LLCs and bylaws, shareholder agreements for corporations, etc.I can honestly say that the level of detail with regard to the tax citations and reasoning to include such citations is well worth the money. 

As you mentioned, there are some excellent capital raisers on BP...and the concern is not the model, just the candor.Yes that's what I mentioned you need to be in management and part of the GP team.. or an employee . in our state we could have two employees raise money and we just had to register them with the Division of corporate securities in Oregon... but just running around making referrals to syndicators with nothing more than a commission agreement does not work unless your licensed properly.. there are many boutique series 7 firms out there that specialize in this stuff.